Don't count me out just yet
by Screechy lady
Summary: The Team is attempting to conduct missions, but there is a person lurking in the shadows, hindering both the Team and the Light. Acting with absolutely no regard for their own health, the motives of this individual have stumped even the Batclan, who have failed to deduce their identity. The individual's only defining characteristic being the red helmet that they wear.
1. Prologue

His body ached. His most definitely broken various ribs were on fire and his punctured lungs were numb and cold. At least, he was _mostly_ sure that his lung was punctured. It was possible that the pain was causing to hallucinate, he didn't think that it was natural cough up that much blood without having severe internal damage. Oh, who was he kidding? He was in terrible shape. His left leg was broken in at least two places, one arm was dislocated, one of his eyes was swollen shut, and he could barely think straight, not to mention the numerous cuts, stab wounds, and bruises that littered his body. Though the injuries weren't even the worst of it. It was the gleaming, beady eyes that flashed with joy and insane madness that watched his every move. "...and tell the Big Man I say, "Hello"." When the clown had left, he had silently gasped with relief to be out of sight of the twin orbs that contained the windows to some evil, twisted, mind. As he struggled to feet, he became aware of a minute ticking noise.

Tick. Tick. Tick. A bomb. Great. He just couldn't catch a break recently. First, the League doubted him, a sentiment no doubt echoed by the Team. Then, he had yet another argument with Bruce about his "arrogance and impulsiveness".

 _30..._

 _He understood what Bruce was talking about now, but he would never admit aloud that Bruce was right._

 _25..._

 _He hoped that Dick or Bruce would be here soon._

 _20..._

 _He had done everything that Batman had taught him to do in a kidnapping and torture situation, surely he deserved to be let off the hook for following directions for once?_

 _15..._

 _They were cutting it very close._

 _10..._

 _Bruce would bust down the doors any minute now and rescue him. He'd even apologize to Bruce and admit he was right._

 _5..._

 _"Please hurry."_

 _1..._

 _"They're not coming. I'm all alo-"_

"JASON!"

In hindsight, the Team should have paid better attention when to Nightwing's reaction when he answered an incoming call from Batman on his comm link. His shocked gasp and horrified face slowly draining of blood were subtle indicators that something was amiss. Then, he sprinted to the zeta tubes like his life depended on it, a blatantly obvious sign that something was terribly wrong. However, the individual members of the Team were more interested with their personal lives or what they currently were doing. In fact, their attention was so occupied that they barely noticed his state or rushed leave. Hindsight however, was 20/20 and the members of the Team that were closer to late Jason Todd couldn't help but think that it was somehow their faults. Artemis and Raquel especially, as they had bonded with the tough kid from a notorious 'hood, who's past was similar to both of them. There was nothing they could have done anyway.

 _We should have appreciated every moment with you more_.

There was really nothing that could have been done, (in the opinion of most senior leaguers) to prevent the inevitable; the second Robin was too aggressive and didn't possess as finely honed skills as the first. However, his contagious enthusiasm to impress Batman had blinded them to Batman's poor judgement and they, much like the Team, found themselves feeling that they should have done something.

 _We should have seen this coming from afar; we should have known better._

Forget even trying to reason with Bruce. He knew it was his fault, despite Dick's arguments otherwise; you could take a kid off the streets, but not the streets off the kid. Jason was the most stubborn, rebellious teenager that Bruce had ever known. And that's what was killing him. He should have known that Jason would pursue the Joker even when it brought unnecessary risk to his life. He had heard the whispers among the League about Jason's lack of skill in comparison to Dick and knew the boy had to. Jason had desperately tried to prove he was as talented a crimefighter as Dick leading him to make the suicidal decisions that lead to his demise. And it was Bruce's fault. If he had reassured him, been a more pleasant person, hell, been a better father, this wouldn't have happened.

 _It's all my fault that he's dead. I should have never dragged an innocent into my crusade. Just more blood on my hands. I never got to tell you this, but I'm sorry._

Alfred just sadly looked at the small grave nestled in between the two larger graves. It was a brobdingnagian amount of respect and honor that Bruce must've had for Jason _,_ in order to bury him between the late Thomas and Martha Wayne. "Not an ounce too little." he mused.


	2. Deals with the Devil himself

Blinding green light seared his eyelids. His body was flaming, burning,- _must get it to stop-_ there was a voice screaming in agony- _Who is that? Dick-_

Who?

- _have to find_ -

What?

- _need_.

Why? Acid green orbs, not unlike the light burning his eyes, belonging to the devil himself, leaking insanity into the world. " _-Which hurts more? "A" or "B"?"_ The flaming, stinging, pain that had spread throughout his entire body had dispersed to a dull tingling but now, there was a roaring in his ears. It was slowly getting louder, voices crowding around to be heard, _shouting, screaming, clawing over each other._ "-...best day of my life!"

"You didn't need to use that much force!"

"Dick would have done better." And so on. The screeching, _raging_ voice that had been there at the beginning, it was getting louder, and as he broke the surface of the water he realized that it was _him_. He was the one shrieking and crying out in pain, he just wanted the awful green light that was clawing at his vision to go away!

He reached up, intent to rip out his eyes, _-anything to make the awful, otherworldly light go away-_ and was stopped by a pair of lean, but strong hands. He looked up, staring into the face of a proud young man, but saw only an old, somewhat beaten man. _"Older than you think."_ his brain cryptically supplied. He attempted to break the young _-"no, old"_ \- man's grip, but couldn't.

"Do you know what the Detective has left you to become? His son? He patrols his city with his prodigal son and your replacement without a second thought to your sacrifice. The heroes have forgotten you, the replacement for the original, the failure. I can offer you revenge, the ability to take back what was yours, power, even near immortality! All I need you to do is agree to help me." the old man bargained, seemingly staring into his soul.

"...Bruce..."

"Yes, the Detective. He alone is responsible for what happened to you. All you have to do is agree to help me, and you can revenge." he advertised.

"...want Bruce..." The man's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. His voice took one more sinister tone.

"Are you sure you will not join me?" When he did not immediately reply, the man gestured to the individuals behind him garbed in all black. "Seize him." the old man ordered seemingly unconcerned. This all wasn't right. The man's age, the people in black, and the cave. _"There are no bats."_ That fact in itself made him begin to laugh loudly to himself, startling the man, he turned in time to see Jason run through the people, that were just so _wrong._ He killed one by stabbing his thumbs through his victim's eyes and ran from the rest. He sprinted through the halls, desperately trying to reach the outside and fresh air. The people were catching up. _"-Need to get out, walls closing in on me, no where to go- Bruce-"_ An exit! He charged the window at full speed, charging through it, free falling into the jungle, stories below. He hit the ground running and never looked back.


	3. Running from angry blondes

Sirens were audible in the chilly night air as he watched Roy Harper-the clone one, land right at his former mentor's feet. Yes, Jason was aware that the hero with a lone wolf shtick and anger management issues known as Red Arrow was actually a cloned hero with a lone wolf shtick and anger management issues. Maybe it was a clone thing, he mused, thinking of Superboy.

Anyway, he observed in the shadows as Ollie attempted to and failed epically to reconcile with his former protege. "Though," he thought sullenly, "Green Arrow's poor attempt at an intervention was better than any of Bruce's efforts to get him to become less aggressive against their villains." Recoiling suddenly, he made a mental note to stop thinking of Gotham's villains as his and Bruce's. It was his replacement's and Bruce's now. He became even more angry as Dick started to reason with Harper, making more of an effort to help out a quite possibly high, poor excuse for a hero (in Jason's opinion) than he did to save him. Making a snap decision that he figured probably wouldn't end well for him, he started to load his EDM windrunner. After all, he wouldn't _really_ hurt Nightwing. A few bullet wounds in non-lethal locations was nothing in comparison to being beaten and blown up.

He finished loading his sniper rifle with that pleasant thought. It was a recently developed model that he had stolen from one of the Italian mafia's caches in Gotham. Bruce hadn't even noticed the blown up warehouse and slaughtered mafia he had left behind. "As blind as a bat." he muttered aloud to himself, lining up the shot. Something made him hesitate though.

"...Seriously, have you met Superboy." Wally jested on the roof.

"Great, now he was thinking like West." he thought to himself. Noticing that the shot had gone wide he lined it back up to Dick's head and refocused on the conversation just in time to hear the tail end of it.

"-want to salvage someone's soul? Try to get Kaldur to see the light. From what I hear, he could use some use correcting, but leave me out." That was a new revelation. He didn't know what bothered him more, that Harper also genuinely believed that Nightwing wanted to help him or the fact that it looked like Nightwing wanted to genuinely help him. The latter a luxury Jason never had. Meanwhile, Red Arrow began to drive his point home. "Write me off, or don't." However, he never got to finish his sentence, as Jason pulled the trigger. "Either way-" he toppled over the side of the building as the bullet ripped through his side.

"ROY!" yelled his Nightwing and Black Canary in unison, while Green Arrow just stared numbly at the spot where his former protege once was. Wally sprinted down the side of the several story building and caught his friend as he was plummeting towards the ground.

"Guys, he needs help!" Wally shouted up at the frozen heroes. Nightwing snapped out of his trance first.

"Jim, go help Wally. See if you can get Roy to the nearest zeta tube then to the Mountain. There's one on Fifth and Pier, I think." Then, his voice took on a much grimmer tone. "Canary, Arrow, you're with me. We're going to find the shooter." The group split, with the former hero, Guardian, going down to help his "brother" clone and Nightwing, flanked by the two senior heroes, examining the angle of the bullet's impact. Jason, who had already packed up his rifle and had stowed it away on his person, waited until his predecessor's masked eyes made contact with the lenses of his helmet before bolting.

"Nice night for a run." he muttered.

"There! On top of the Lexcorp building, single shooter!" Nightwing drilled out to Canary and Arrow, having seen Roy's shooter. Whoever they were, they were going to regret their actions

"He's out of range." growled the latter. "And there are too many civilians for her to let loose a canary cry."

"A pursuit on foot it is." Nightwing commented as he flipped off the building, Black Canary and Green Arrow hot on his heels. Even though the three heroes were running towards Red Arrow's masked assailant at full speed, they were having a difficult time catching up to him. Even more so were they forced to slow down, as the shooter jumped through a layer of scaffolding surrounding a building undergoing construction. The mystery man (as a closer look at the figure confirmed their gender) literally hit the ground running, only slowing to get up from the barrel roll they had performed to minimize injury. As he flipped down the now broken scaffolding, Canary and GA sliding down seconds after him, Nightwing hurled a batarang at the fleeing figure. Only for the figure to _dodge_ it at the last second, leaving the batarang embedded in the wood they were running on.

"Who is this guy?" muttered Arrow, unused to seeing anyone avoid an attack from the Bat or any of his protégés.

Jason resisted the urge to utter a witty comeback at the startled heroes and instead slammed through some wood framework with his shoulder. Noticing the end of the building's scaffolding approaching, he grabbed a pressurized tank of some sort. He wasn't sure what was in it, but it didn't matter, as long as it provided the distraction he needed. Hurling himself over the edge of the building, he flung the tank behind him turned around and shot it. The resulting explosion and exclamation of "Son of a bitch!" informed him that Green Arrow had been caught in the blast radius.

When he saw the pressurized oxygen tank come flying at him and the red helmeted villain pulling out his gun, Nightwing knew to get out of the way fast. He dove behind a pile of wood planks, assuming that Canary and Arrow had acceptable cover, and was about to continue chase when he Arrow curse. Turning around, he saw that there were what appeared to be third degree burns on the arms and left side of the vigilante's face, as well as burns on his hood that was still smoking. "Ollie!" cried a concerned Black Canary.

"I'm fine! Keep going!" he yelled. When the heroine looked ready to protest, Nightwing cut her off. "If we wait any longer, we'll lose him." he reminded her before taking off again.

The sound of her footsteps and angry muttering reassured him that he had very competent and _angry_ backup. He jumped from the scaffolding to see the man now responsible for both Green and Red Arrow's injuries, (not death, he refused to tell himself, despite the severity of Red Arrow's bullet wound), was only halfway across the metal framework of what was set to be a new high rise. It was almost as if this guy _wanted_ them to follow him.

Jason had slowed down when he noticed the absence of more footsteps, but when he heard them resume, he started to speed up. He began jumping from beam to beam, giving both heroes a run for their money and further frustrating Canary at the length of the chase. Reaching the end of the metal framework he dove off, coming up out of a role on the rooftop across from the new structure, and hopped over the side of the roof. He cleared the space between the next roof and the one he was formerly on, taking off again. When he reached the end of _that_ roof he jumped across the gap and landed on the ledge on top of the windows of the adjacent apartment building. From there, he cleared the gap between the building, tucking and rolling onto a low flying police blimp. When Nightwing and Black Canary rounded the corner he opened fire, causing the two of the, to duck behind the corner for cover. Reading Nightwing's lips he smirked. _"You wish you were this good, Birdie."_ he thought to himself.

After they ducked behind the corner, Nightwing muttered "He's good." to an enraged Canary.

"Yes, he putting on quite a show." she practically growled out. Glancing over to the side, he noted that she looked ready to bash some heads in. Searching around the corner, Nightwing saw that the subject of their pursuit was sprinting across the adjacent rooftop. He ran, jumping onto the top of the previously occupied blimp, before jumping onto the next ledge, Black Canary overtaking him. They ran along the ledge, until the man reached the edge and jumped off. Since there were no civilians nearby, Canary released one of her famed canary cries, only for the man to twist in midair and _dodge_ the attack aimed his way.

"He's very good." This time, he didn't need to look over at her to see that she was seething.

After barely dodging Canary's attack, (he needed to not cut those so close, his ears were still ringing), he planted both feet on the closest wall, pushed off, and landed on yet another apartment building ledge all in the space of a few seconds. He was ninety eight percent sure that Dick had exclaimed, "We got him!", though he supposed that it could have been "We're pot heads!". _"Then again, it really wouldn't make sense that Dick would be yelling that at me, and Bruce's golden boy would never become an addict, unlike Harper."_ he mused as he free fell through the air. As he shattered the glass at the train station and quickly set up plastic explosives, on the main support beams, he wondered what had caused him to decide to shoot Harper instead of Grayson. Was it jealousy that Harper still had people trying to reach out and help him, while he didn't? He started to sprint over to his motorcycle, as both Dick and Canary dropping through the hole he had made in the ceiling.

When he and Canary dropped down onto the ground, Dick asked, "You think we lost him?" Canary neglected to answer him, in favor of yelling "MOVE!" at the sight of a bomb, shoving him onto some train tracks, and throwing her body over his to protect him from the resulting explosion. Canary's pained groan as she grasped her wrist, wasn't enough to mask the sound of a motorcycle's engine revving. He turned at the noise in time to hear the mystery figure's exclamation of "You're loosing your touch-" before the sound of the impending train bearing down on him and Canary caused him to shove her off the tracks and fling himself over next to her. When he looked back, the man was gone without a trace. Turning to Canary's pained face, he made eye contact, asking,

"Can you walk?"


	4. Search and knock out missions

After slinging Canary's arm around his shoulder, (she had sprained her ankle jumping over to shield him from the bomb on the train tracks). Additionally, she had also broken her wrist in two places and received numerous lacerations from debris on the skin that her costume exposed. As he half carried, half dragged her over to the nearest zeta tube, receiving odd looks from passerby wandering the streets that late at night, he tried to contact Arrow.

"Green Arrow, this is Nightwing. What's your location?" No answer. "I repeat, Arrow, this is Nightwing. What is you location?" he called into the comm, getting increasingly worried. "Damn. We must be out of range."

"We're almost at the zeta tube. I can make it there myself. Go look for Ollie." ordered Canary.

"At the rate we're going it will only take ten minutes. By yourself it will take at least half an hour. Roy's assailant could still be out there and you can barely handle yourself."

"He could have Ollie hostage." argued Canary.

"If that's true, then it's even more important that you get to the zeta tube intact, so that we still have as many leaguers as possible." he argued back just as stubbornly. When it looked like Canary was going to object again, he did something that he hadn't done in years; pulled out the puppy dog eyes, or as Selina had affectionately dubbed them, kitten eyes. "Please Dinah," he reasoned with a second mother figure to most of the senior team, himself included, "at least for my piece of mind, let me walk you to the zeta tube."

"Alright, fine." she huffed, limping more than before. "If only because I know how much it bruised your ego to do the puppy dog eyes." she smirked, her voice taking a more humorous tone.

"Haha." he smirked back at her as she smiled at him. There smiles however, faded when they got to the zeta tube and saw the amount of blood on the ground. There were small puddles of it on the asphalt next to an inconspicuous dumpster. The dumpster was located in the back of a diner that actually was a secret hideout for the League if they ever needed it. On the side of the dumpster, which was partially covering up a zeta scanner, there were bloody handprints.

"Oh, God." muttered Canary, aghast.

"Here, you go right now, Roy will need you when his surgery is over." Nightwing said firmly. He refused to believe that Roy wouldn't make it. Though it was obvious to him that Roy was somewhat high, he was still strong, and Nightwing believed that he would pull through. His harshness shook Canary out of her uncharacteristic moment of weakness and shock, and she was back to business as usual. Putting on a brave face she let go of his shoulder and hobbled into the zeta tube.

"Find Ollie." she reminded him, before hobbling through.

After she left, he took off flipping and running back to the building under construction where he had last seen Green Arrow. However, as he reached the wooden planks that he had sheltered behind, he didn't see Arrow. All that was left were some burnt wood planks, ruined wood framework, a punctured oxygen tank and Arrow's smoking hood, which presumably he had taken off to prevent his already burnt face from further catching on fire. It wasn't looking good for the Leaguer. It didn't make sense though. Had the red helmeted criminal been after Green Arrow the whole time? It didn't seem like the figure had been focusing on any hero in particular, though if they wanted to hurt Green Arrow, shooting Red Arrow made sense. Turning on his comm link, he tried to contact Green Arrow again, this time getting static.

"I'm an idiot!" he slapped himself on the forehead. Turning on his wrist computer, he traced Arrow's signal to a few blocks away from the zeta tube. Following the signal, he got up from his crouching position examining the floor and took off. Eventually, he caught up to Ollie who appeared to be not quite coherent and was staggering towards the direction of the zeta tube.

"Arrow!" he called as he ran up to the man.

"Nightwing?" he questioned. "Dammit!" He muttered in pain as his head turned and he irritated the burns that on closer inspection, ran halfway down his neck.

"Okay, Ollie just keep your head still and stop talking so your burns won't get further irritated." Nightwing instructed.

"Frankly, I'm surprised you're still on your feet." he muttered to himself. Aloud to Arrow, he said, "We're a few blocks from the zeta tube. I need you to make it there, since I can't carry you if you collapse." He started off slow, dragging the dazed man along. After about twenty minutes, he looked over at the leaguers face it was a messy mesh of burned tissue, half his mask was missing, and the U burnt half of his face was pale and sweaty. "Alright we're getting very close, I need you to stay with me for a couple more minutes." he said, noting the man's pallor.

When they reached the dumpster it had been a full hour since he dropped Canary off there and if anything, the scene by the dumpster seemed even worse. "Roy..." mumbled Ollie, even less coherent than when Nightwing found him, and clearly in distress. Leaning the older man against the wall and pushing the dumpster out of the way, he walked back over to Green Arrow.

"Alright Ollie, we've got to get in front of the zeta scanner now." he grunted as he helped hoist the Leaguer to his feet. Staggering under most of the man's weight, he struggled in front of the scanner.

"Recognized, Nightwing B-01, Green Arrow 08." the computer drilled out as their molecules were disassembled and reassembled. It appeared that the travel by zeta tubes had totally drained Arrow, as he was out cold as soon as they entered the Mountain. Nightwing made it about ten feet before he collapsed under the combined weight of Ollie and his gear. Thankfully, Connor entered the room a few seconds later and ran over to heft Arrow over shoulder. It didn't mean though that Nightwing wasn't starting to gasp for air when Superboy got there.

"You took your time." he joked.

"Just be happy that I got here." Connor replied in a deadpan, as they hustled towards the mountain's infirmary. When they got there Connor delicately put Arrow into a waiting gurney for M'Gann and an apparently recovered enough Black Canary to get to work. However, before she could begin to help her boyfriend, Nightwing pulled her aside.

"Dinah, you need to rest." he began in a quiet voice. "You were leaning on me as I dragged you to the zeta tube almost two hours ago."

"I need to be here to help him." she argued back narrowing her eyes. Eyes, he noticed, that had smaller than normal pupils. "Just because you-"

"Look," he cut her off. "I don't have the time to be arguing about this, so-" while her reflexes were dulled by the painkillers that she was obviously on, he reached past the arm that she put up to block him, pinched her nerve, and caught her as she fell to the ground, out cold. "-you can take a nap." he finished with a small smile.

"Thank you." sighed M'Gann who he had noticed in his peripheral, taking out medical equipment to treat Arrow. "She's been too restless trying to go back out and help you, I was worried she would aggravate her injuries."

As he placed Canary onto a gurney and tucked her in, Nightwing glanced over his shoulder. "She had good reason to be so restless, but you're right." he conceded to her unconvinced expression. Once Black Canary appeared comfortable, he made his way over to the holographic computer located in the training room where they filed all mission reports and incident reports. First, he opened communications with the Watchtower. "This is Mount Justice to the Watchtower, come in Watchtower." A screen opened on the holocomputer, revealing Captain Atom's face.

"Watchtower recieving." the leaguer verified before noticing who he was talking to. "Nightwing. I assume that you want an update of Red Arrow's operation." It was a statement, not a question. At the younger hero's nod, he continued "The bullet barely nicked an intestine and exited through his other side. He was very lucky. Dr. Mid-nite definitely thinks that he'll recover."

"Thank you. Captain." he smiled, relieved, and closed the feed. Then, he opened a new icon on the computer, used to file mission and incident reports. This definitely qualified as an incident report. Green Arrow and Black Canary would both need to file their own separate reports, but for now just his would do. After summarizing the encounter in writing and noting on the report that Green Arrow and Black Canary would both need to file their own separate reports in the document, he hacked the security cameras in the train station. He wasn't sure what was motivating him, perhaps it was simple curiosity about the villain that had somehow outsmarted both him and two leaguers, something familiar about the man, or jealousy at how easy he slipped through their grasp. He mused as he typed on the holocomputer rewinding and forwarding various bits of footage.

Wait, he remembered, the helmeted figure had said something before he had shoved Canary out of the way of the train. Forwarding the footage to when he remembered the figure speaking, he listened to their sentence a few times. When the words were Still garbled despite him listening to the clip several times, he extracted it and removed the background noise. "Let's see what our mystery man has to say." he muttered to himself, before playing the audio.

"You're loosing your touch, Dick!" A voice that seemed strangely familiar jeered at him. He could feel. His face slowly draining of color. He could think of only six people who knew Nightwing's secret identity. Bruce, Barbara, Tim, Alfred, Wally, and Amy, his partner on the Bludhaven PD. He needed to make some calls...


	5. Subtlety is overrated

There was a biting chill in the Blüdhaven air. Just by walking a few yards in the city one could tell it was a dark, gritty place. Women cried out in fear, surrounded, in allies, as rabid dogs barked and punk music blared from nightclubs. "It really was the sister city of Gotham." Jason mused to himself, "No wonder Golden Boy chose this place to patrol, it's like he never left Gotham. Hell, it's even within driving distance of Alfred's cookies." Don't get him wrong, he had a vendetta against Bruce, his Golden Boy, and the sissy wearing the Robin uniform, but the kindly butler and female sidekick were spared. It wasn't their fault he died or that the Joker lived. Alfred could not have done anything at that age and the girl hadn't been Bruce's sidekick at the time. He still wasn't sure why he shot Red Arrow, though.

He grunted, barely audible to himself due to the commotion the next street over. It sounded like two groups of drunks were duking it out over something definitely stupid. The hero he was tailing barely stopped. Clearly, there was something more important to Nightwing than stopping a few rowdy drunks that he was in a hurry to reach. Frankly, Jason was unimpressed. He had been following Dick for almost forty-five minutes now, and the older vigilante had given no indication that he had even begun to suspect that he was being followed. Finally, Blüdhaven's bird stopped at a warehouse and climbed in a broken window. After examining the rest of the building and finding no other viable way in, Jason waited five minutes, than climbed in after him. He shot a grappling hook at the ceiling's main support beams it latched on with a dull ping pulling him up.

As soon as he heard the sound he associated with a grappling hook hooking onto something Nightwing went on high alert. He had thought that he had seen someone one or two times, out of the corner of his eye, on the way to the warehouse, but had chalked it down to paranoia. Now, however, he was sure that someone was following him. Silently, he stalked across the warehouse floor, using the many shipping containers for cover. As he got closer to where he heard the sound come from, he heard an audible rustling sound. Flipping around a corner ready to fight someone who was obviously good, maybe Slade, the mercenary certainly was obsessed with him, he saw, a stray cat? It had black fur with the exception of a white tipped tail and also had green eyes.

Startled, it bolted out a hole low to the ground in the warehouse's walls. Sighing, he went back to where he was waiting for Kaldur, Wally, and Artemis. Only to hear the service door quietly opening and closing, followed by shuffling a few minutes later. "Wally?" he whispered, praying that it wasn't whoever had been following him coming to confront him.

"No." replied an even voice. Turning around, he saw Kaldur rounding the corner of a shipping container. He was about to reply to his longtime friend, who was secretly an undercover agent, when more shuffling became audible. Narrowing his eyes, he tensed, ready for anything. Kaldur, noticing this also began to take a fighting stance, before relaxing it when it was revealed to only be Wally.

"Woah, Guys, it's just me! Well, me and Artemis anyway." he amended when he saw his longtime girlfriend round the corner, her eyebrow raised. "What's the big deal?"

Nightwing shrugged. "Sorry, on the way here I thought I was being tailed, but it was nothing." By the expressions of his three comrades, they didn't buy it, but we're willing to let it slide.

"I take it our ruse was successful." stated Kaldur drawing his attention snd carrying on the conversation.

When Dick had almost reached his hiding spot, Jason had glanced down, and began to panic, seeing the cat below him. However, what could have possibly ruined his chances to figure out the Golden Boy's plan, had actually saved him. Dick had dismissed his presence and walked away none the wiser. When he had heard the door open, he knew he had to move quickly. The new person's footsteps would only cover any noise he made for so long.

Carefully balancing on the beam, he made his way over to a point where he could see Nightwing and stopped. Soon, the mystery person was revealed to be Aqualad, in a style of armor very reminiscent of Black Manta. While he knew that Kaldur had had a change of heart, he didn't expect the former Team leader to join of his sworn enemies. "You die, and everyone thinks they can do whatever they want." he mused. Returning his attention to the conversation that the heroes and not villain, there was clearly a story here, he heard Nightwing speak.

"This secret and the other. That you've been under deep cover within Black Manta's organization since leaving the League and the Team. How'd it go on that end?" he questioned, concerned.

"Successful as well." The atlantean replied turning to Wally and Artemis as he did so. "I have proven my loyalty to my biological father, he is bringing me up the ranks, moving closer to the light and their unknown partner." he affirmed grimly.

"Not without cost, Kaldur." sighed Nightwing. "The comm sat wasn't supposed to be destroyed, and La'Gaan definitely wasn't supposed to be captured!"

While he didn't know who the "Lagoon" character was, probably one of the freshman, the destruction of the comm sat rang a bell. He had been watching the news, he honestly had no idea why, he hated fake people, (like Bruce), he had seen a report about the explosion. Unimpressed, he had done some digging and had found that even without his impulsiveness, the Team was still screwing up their missions. (Which really didn't surprise him, but still...). Anyways, he had heard enough, and began to quietly ready one of his canisters of (slightly) poisonous knockout gas. Then, when Artemis asked, really trying karma (might he add), "What could go wrong?", he couldn't resist.

Artemis asked, "What could go wrong?", pulling Wally into a hug, just as a canister spewing smoke dropped to the floor. Both he and Kaldur made sounds of warning, but it was too late. As Nightwing's vision began to blur, he saw Kaldur manage to put on the helmet he had been holding, which had an air filter. Wally and Artemis, however, were down for the count. The speedster had succumbed faster than all of them due to his metabolism, and he had fallen, unconscious on top of Artemis, who, struggling from the gas, couldn't push him off in time to get away. As he sunk to one knee, struggling to stand, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head and his world faded to black.

Once he had knocked Dick out, he began to access his portable holocomputer. He had to be fast, the affects of the canister would only be effective for six minutes, four for the former Kid Flash. Hacking his way through the first for firewalls he reached a password. The question read, "What was the name of my first pet?" He snorted. "So easy, he practically asking someone to download all his files. I'll help you out then, Bird Brain." He began typing, Z-I-T-K-, only to be forced to dodge a laser blast at the last second. Kaldur was kneeling, but appeared to rapidly recovering. If he wasn't so busy dodging lasers, Jason would have kicked himself. "Of course Kaldur's helmet would have a filter! It was hooked up to an air tank for Christ's sake!" Pulling out his 40mm he shot a few bullets to distract Kaldur before jumping over the storage unit he was taking cover behind and threw down a smokescreen. While it probably wouldn't hinder the atlantean for long, he probably had thermal scanners, in the time it took to switch his helm's vision was all Jason needed.

Sprinting over, he sliced the exposed air tube to the helm with his knife. When the young man ripped it off, gasping for air, he was met with three punches to the face, being affectively knocked out. By Jason's count he had about thirty seconds give or take, before Wally woke up. "Screw subtlety." he thought, slicing the computer out of Nightwing's costume before taking off. "Suck it, Goldie." he smirked under his helmet as he ran off into the night.


	6. Failures and Regrets

A few minutes later, as he was shaken awake by an anxious Wally, Nightwing came to the unpleasant conclusion that he was not a happy vigilante. A quick inspection revealed he was in fact being followed, he had a killer headache that was making it hard to see straight, his holo glove computer had been stolen, though more importantly, an unknown had all the information on the computer. While he was furious with himself for dismissing the shadow on the way to the warehouse, he needed to focus on the more important theft.

"Did anyone get eyes on our assailant?" he questioned the group. (Kaldur had been awakened by Artemis while he was analyzing the situation.)

"I managed to put on my helm before I succumbed to the foreign chemicals." Kaldur answered. "The suspect is roughly six feet tall and armed with both a handgun and a knife that was able to cut the tubing from my oxygen tank." A feeling of dread began to bubble in his stomach.

"Did you get a good look at what uniform he was wearing?" he urged, though he already knew the answer. A crook with a handgun that had gotten the drop on four of them. The pimp clearly had gotten the jump on five heroes, two of which were Leaguers no less, when he had shot Roy.

"He appeared to be wearing a material similar to your uniform, a leather jacket, and a red helmet that obscured his helmet." At his friends facial expression, Kaldur questioned, "I take it you two have met?" His stomach suddenly cemented. He wanted to hurt this untalented crook with a few lucky breaks.

"Yeah, we have. The bastard shot Roy." he growled.

"I'm sorry my friend, but I must have misheard you. You said that Roy was shot?" Kaldur interrogated, shocked.

"I'm sorry we weren't able to tell you sooner, but there wasn't a good time. He shot Roy in the chest." Wally cut in for Nightwing, to the latter's relief.

"But Roy, who has proven himself to be an able crime fighter and can clearly proved handle himself in delicate situations. You are telling me he has been shot?" Kaldur asked, shell shocked. "Is he alright?" he interrogated at his friends' tight lipped silence. Nightwing sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"It's slow going. He's stable and is awake, but keeps trying to leave the mountain and resume his search for the 'original Speedy'. Canary has to track him down, knock him out, and bring him back to the infirmary, only for him to try to escape again eight hours later. I heard her cursing out Ollie for teaching him how to dislocate his wrists in order to escape full bed restraints."

"Further proving that Roy at the very least should have realized that there was a man pointing a forty millimeter at him." Kaldur replied hotly, guessing at what model the handguns he had faced earlier were. As he realized his rudeness towards his friends, he began to apologize, only to be cut off by Nightwing.

"That's the thing, he made the shot from 1,600 yards away with a sniper rifle with no laser sight. Not just any shooter can do that. And short of noticing the shooter, we were sitting ducks on that rooftop." he muttered to himself, but everyone heard him. "Enough about Roy though. You two need to get back before Manta becomes worried." he reminded. Kaldur nodded and Artemis and Wally kissed each other again before the former left the warehouse with Kaldur.

Wally must have read the expression on his face, because he asked, "What didn't you tell them?" Dick internally sighed; sometimes he hated having a friend that knew him so well.

"The guy was able to steal my holocomputer. If he can hack it, he'll have access to every mission log, League and Team profiles, all the viruses I designed, and every bit of Intel that the Team had gathered. It was a bad idea to put all the information where it could be easily accessed, but I assumed someone wouldn't be able to get it." Wally rounded on him, green fire in his eyes.

"You think?" he ground out. "Now the same son of a bitch that shot Roy has all the secrets IDs and weaknesses of the League and Team, and he knows what the Team and League have been doing and are planning on doing, along with the ability to probably hack the Pentagon with your computer viruses!" he yelled at him and turned. "I thought that asking Artemis to come back to the hero biz was the worst thing that you could do to me, but you've proved me wrong. Some friend you are." he spit at Nightwing venomously, before speeding out of the warehouse.

Nightwing sighed to himself. Fights where one or both of them exchanged insults were not uncommon. Pushing his feelings aside like he had been trained to do, he set up a crime scene scanning for evidence. He sighed again as he reached to turn on his hologlove to scan something, only to realize that it wasn't on his wrist anymore. He had a lot of work to do.

Jason cursed to himself as he hacked yet _another_ firewall. After he had entered the password ZITKA (from the safety of his current hideout), he had encountered another eighteen safety measures. (Trust him, he was keeping track). He decided to take a break and focus on something else. Getting up, he padded over to the coffee maker, one of the few non-essential vigilante justice-enacting devices. Unfortunately, he had picked up Bruce's horrid coffee addiction as Robin, and it had remained with him after the grave. The old man hadn't done anything to stop his actions so far, and frankly, Jason was becoming concerned. He had expected to have come into contact with Bruce, and get his high-and-mighty shtick once he began to suspect Jason's identity, probably dragging Dick into the interrogation. He took a sip from his mug, only to almost choke on it.

Of course! Bruce was a total stickler for taking notes, documenting them, and then filing them. He also had inevitably had hacked into Dick's computer and placed an emergency override on it, in case he was out of commission or went rogue. He rushed over to the computer, quickly pressing a certain series of buttons. Looking at the six character password, he smirked. If someone who knew his identity (aka Jason) hacked the computer and found Bruce's secret override, they would have no problem bypassing security. Chuckling, he began to type.

The silence in the too small jail cell he was confined to was suddenly filled with beeping. Looking down at his utility belt, which he was left with (fatal mistake if his intentions were hostile), he saw that his special override had been activated. A few hacks and security bypasses proved that Nightwing's wrist computer was being override with his hacks and the hacker was looking at missions Goddess and Penitentiary. Batman stared in horror at the screen as the hacker accessed the tracker in both Tigress's and his suit. His horror mounted as the unknown typed a message. _You can't run from your failures, Bruce._


	7. Conflicting motives

This building was _terribly_ designed. Jason mused to himself as he crawled through a (thankfully) large air vent. He could easily move through it on his hands and knees and could probably stand up if he really wanted to. He sighed, shaking his head. Bats must have been out voted when they were designing the Hall of Justice, because there was no way he would have not known about the easily accessible air vents and the size of said air vents. His internal mocking of the design of the Hall was interrupted by an obnoxiously loud voice.

"Greetings and salutations, Earthlings! I am L-Ron major domo to the Great Master! And you are my prisoners!" Jason scoffed to himself as he scrambled up an incline in the vent, trying to reach a good vantage point. That was probably one of the most stupid things he had heard to date. He reached a ventilation grate with a perfect view of Captain Marvel and Zatanna in time for the former to exclaim;

"This is Plastic man's April fools joke isn't it? Okay Plas! You got us!" ...and that was most stupid thing he had heard to date.

"No, I have you." The robot/android/whatever replied in a condescending tone as he pressed a button on his gauntlet. He was going to melt that robot into scrap metal. he thought angrily, as a laser grid of some kind formed a pyramid over the hall. "Though, not for myself, of course. Rather, I behest you with the presence of my master, who seeks to prove himself against Earth's greatest warriors!" the android continued to wax poetic.

Suddenly, the painfully bright light that Jason immediately associated with a boom tube was visible even in the vent. Jason had only had the pleasure of witnessing the light once, but that was more than enough for his retinas. As the glow faded, a purple skinned alien with a magenta mohawk was revealed. If the alien wasn't ripped, it's muscles bulging, he would have laughed at its appearance. As it was, he thanked his lucky stars that this alien appeared to be hostile, if the kick to Captain Marvel's chest that sent him flying through a pain of glass into those God-ugly statues of the founding seven. If the Leaguers and Team members were busy fighting the alien, it would be so much easier for him to sneak download the latest mission transcripts.

"Let the cage match...begin!" the android, L-Ron, cheered, as his "master" turned his attention to Zatanna, who furiously began to chant a spell, only to stop, halfway through. Closer inspection showed that she was hunched over and staring, as though throughly transfixed by something. That sent Jason high alert. Zatanna never slouched. Ever. It seemed as though she was trying to prove to world that she could handle anything. He suspected it was part of the psychological trauma from the incident that caused Zatara to become Dr. Fate. She wanted to be and seem independent from anyone or anything. He began to army crawl through the vent towards the main computer port. However, he felt the alien's gaze on his back and turned, making eye contact. Big mistake.

Suddenly the vent vanished beneath him. He was falling, down, down, down. He was drowning in the green light, his face was burning off, surely he would die! Cruel masked eyes stared at him, silently shaming and condemning him, as his limbs began to melt like wax. There was no way out! Cackling laughter filled the silence, the yelling voices from the pit were back, his ears roared! He was slowly suffocating! His air was gone...gone...gone...Jason crouched frozen in the vent, nerves on edge. The alien appeared to be shaking it's head in pain, stumbling away from him grunting in pain. Superboy, seeing an opening, charged occupying the alien.

Jason suddenly became acutely aware of his heightened breathing and made an effort to slow it down. Once he had caught his breath and was thinking straight again, he began to make his way through the vents to the computer ports. After he was several hundred yards away from the battling alien's, clones, and meta humans, he began to minutely relax, and let his mind wander. "Why had the alien recoiled in pain upon seeing the nightmare that had haunted his dreams since he was resurrected? Sure, it was traumatic, but it wasn't that bad. Of all of the people in the hall, he thought that Zatanna would have had the best defense with her magic, if the alien was showing people their worst fears."

His thoughts were interrupted as he nearly tumbled head first down the vent, which suddenly turned down at a ninety degree angle. Pulling out Dick's holo glove, he checked the schematics he had of the Hall, and located himself. On the map, the vent ended right below him and opened up into the library before the door that guarded the computer banks. "This is too easy, I-crap." he thought as he fell head first down the vent due to a tremor throughout the building from the fight going on above him, to the left. He slowly chimneyed the remaining four feet from where he caught himself, to the bottom of the vent. Effortlessly unscrewing the vent cover in front of him, he pulled it into the vent and shot the camera lens angled at the vent, disabling it. His original plan was to convert lay hack it, but with no one to stop him, it was faster to shoot and go. (Also, he may have been holding a grudge against Bruce, and the man financed most of the technology at the League's various bases.)

Shooting the three other cameras in the room, he dropped out of the vent and plugged the computer into the control panel. One virus, a hack, two passwords, and several minutes later, he was back in the vent crawling towards the entrance. He made better time now that he was familiar with the directions and made good time. In fact, he even got back in time to see the newbie make a fool of himself.

"Your fight is with me, alien! I am Earth's guardian, it's greatest champion! It's secret champion!" He didn't know what this idiot was playing at, but he did know it was going to get him killed. Apparently the alien gladiator didn't either, or at least was somewhat intimidated, because he looked at the android begging for help.

"He is not listed in the crolotean database master, though their records may be incomplete." the android reassured the purple giant.

"Miss Martian, take the others and leave. This is my fight alone." he ordered. Based on the not-so-subtle pause and the worried expression on M'gann's face, Jason gathered that she had about as much idea of what was going on as he did. She really needed to work on her poker face.

"Uh, as you command guardian." she bowed, and levitated Superboy and Bumblebee away through the elevator doors. The android was enamored.

"Master, did you see how she bowed to him?" he gasped. "This guardian must be Earth's true champion! Finally, Master, a battle worthy of your prowess." the alien seemed to take physical delight in this as he growled and smiled, though it closer resembled a leer. The idiot, (that was what Jason had dubbed him) flipped off the ledge he was standing on, and landed on the ground, in a move that clearly screamed Nightwing's style of acrobatics.

"Alright _Freak_ , I could incinerate you with a look, but you hurt my friends, so I'm going to teach you a lesson, instead!" he yelled pacing. He had to admit, the kid had balls, but he was still in way over his head.

"Use caution, Master we don't know this one's abilities." the alien seemingly ignored the android, in favor of charging the idiot. Only to be stopped in confusion by the utter nonsense he was shouting.

"Strength of the Earth! And power of all mankind, I summon you!" he shouted before sinking into the fighting stance of a beginner. "Well, I'm waiting," he started, staring down the alien, "give me your best shot." he fins he'd his jaw setting in a determined line. Jason didn't know what it was, maybe the knowledge of having the similar ready to take on the world expression for most of his life, but something urged him to help the idiot. So when the alien charged and idiot boy flipped over him, (like Canary, he noticed this time), Jason slipped out of the grate and ran along the wall, waiting for a shot. It turned out, he was about to get the chance

When idiot boy questioned the gladiator, somewhat condescendingly, "You are going to reimburse us for damages, right?" he managed to tick off nine feet of pure muscle. So when the alien charged the idiot, ready to throw a table at him, Jason nailed him in the chest twelve times. Unfortunately, all the bullets bounced off. More unfortunately, he now had emptied his gun and now needed to reload. Even more unfortunately, he had now pissed off an alien gladiator.

The alien hurled the table at him, and it only missed him by a few inches, thanks to him leaning back at the last second. Leaning forward, he charged the alien, much to idiot boy's awe, and ducked under an outstretched fist. Remembering the alien's reaction earlier and weakness in the eyes, he pushed off its knee, and jabbed it as hard as he could in its center eye as hard as he could. Pushing off its chest he sprinted over to idiot boy and dragged him over to cover behind a wall, as the alien doubled over clutching its face, and the android switched between worried, vengeful, and confused.

The idiot grabbed his wrist as he started reloading his hand gun. "Who are you? And why haven't I seen you with the League?" Jason yanked his wrist out of the idiots grip.

"Sorry kid, but I'mm not a hero." he laughed bitterly. "You shouldn't be one either. It's not worth it."

"You think that people deserve to be hurt?!" he argued back.

"I never said that, kid. I said I'm not a hero. I won't pretend to be someone I'm not, and you shouldn't either. Your going to get yourself killed." he replied looking around the corner.

"Like you're one to-"

"Move."

"Excuse m-"

"MOVE!" Jason shoved him out of the way as the alien trucked through the wall that they were hiding behind. Growling in pain as he felt a piece of plaster digging into his side, Jason struggled to his feet pulling Mal with him. "We need to spread out and confuse him. You distract him while I make the shot."

"I thought you said that I shouldn't pretend to be something I'm not. I'm not a hero."

"That's right. You're an idiot. Now go distract him like a good idiot." Jason countered shoving him towards the beast. The kid was obviously scared out of his wits, but tried not to show it.

"Did you think that I was done with you yet? I, Earth's guardian, will squash you like the puny bug you ar-" his yelling was cut off as the alien grabbed his torso and started to squeeze. Alarmed, Jason sprinted over and loosed a shot. Right into the behemoth's middle eye. A pink substance, thicker than blood began to ooze down his face and the alien fell to its knees, roaring in agony.

Jason almost felt sorry for him. Almost. As the alien struggled to remain conscious, he was showered in punches, energy pulses, and objects telekinetically thrown at him, and went down hard. The android was enraged. "Cheaters! Sneaks! Frauds! You will alll suffer for your crimes!" it screamed, it's lens turning red as weapons appeared from all over it. Jason bolted, forget helping the idiot and heroes, he had what he needed. He sprinted off towards the secret tunnel underneath the hall that had gotten him in the building in the first place. Bruce had prepared for anything, and had several different secret escape routes, this was just one of which. He triggered the trapdoor and slid through just in time. Right after he closed the trapdoor, he was thrown to the ground by all the shaking. He stood up unsteadily and tried to open the trapdoor, only to find it stuck.

"At least it will take the league a while to notice the trapdoor." he thought, if his hypothesis that the Hall of Justice had just collapsed was correct turning around, he started the three mile run that would eventually lead to his bike.

"Ugh, I can't believe that guy Medusa'd me." Bumblebee groaned clutching her head. Her comment fell on deaf ears, however, as the rest of the group watched Mal run around through the rubble.

"Mal! What are you doing?" yelled Connor, annoyed.

"I need to know if he's okay!" Mal yelled back.

"Who? The gladiator?" Connor asked utterly perplexed.

"No, the guy that helped me keep him busy. He shot the alien in the eye before you got him!" At this point Superboy was the only one able to hear him, because of the distance so M'gann set up a mind link.

"Link established. Billy, can you contact the Watchtower, and see if we can get someone down here to help dispel the force field? At his nod of confirmation, she continued. "Mal, can you describe the man, so we can better identify him?"

"He was 5'10, 5'11, and had on a leather jacket. Also a modified biker helmet."

"What did he do to help you, Mal?"

"Why does it matter?" he thought, concerned.

"Just please answer the question."

"He charged ugly, shot at him, punched him in his eye, and shot him in his eye. Why?"

"One more thing Mal, what color was the helmet?"

"A bright red. Definitely red."

"Oh no." M'gann paled.

"M'gann you have to let us in on what you're thinking so we're on the same page." growled Connor, _very_ annoyed at the Martina's cryptic questions.

"That was the same criminal who shot Roy."


	8. Post-mortem PTSD is a pain

Jason was disappointed in the replacement. He really was. He figured that the new Robin should obviously have known better than to challenge his luck. Especially as part of a team that screwed up on a daily basis. When the loser Drake kid that had seemed a little too obsessed with the Wayne's for his own good while Jason was Robin mumbled, "Two guards, one door hack, and we're home free.", Jason felt like slapping the kid.

"Wait for it." muttered his companion, the original Roy Harper, before a deafening explosion and alarms rang through the building. Not-Robin whipped around so fast, Jason was sure he had whiplash.

"You blew the lab?!" he demanded, horrified. "This was a covert op! What were you thinking?" Jason had to resist groaning in frustration due to Nightwing's choice of team members. The kid clearly had a vendetta against Luthor and other public members of the Light. It seemed obvious that he was going to try to pull something.

"That I'm not about to let Lex Luthor and his alien space buddies poison the world just because we don't know what poison they're using!" he grinned, self appreciatively. Jason had to admit, the original Harper didn't have a rebellious streak, he had ten. If he wasn't so biologically and mentally young, Jason would've considered recruiting him. Hmm...maybe Red Arrow would be up for offers. Then again, he had shot the guy.

"Plus," he added, smirking even wider. "I enjoy making Lex miserable." Jason snorted to himself.

"The mission had been compromised as soon as Arsenal had boarded the bio-ship." Tim mused. Dick had always told Tim he had the right to question Dick's judgement. Really though, Tim thought, Dick only said that to seem less like Bruce to himself. Now, Tim was regretting not following his gut and requesting a different team member, M'Gann maybe. Impulse acted on well, impulse, and knocked out both of the confused guards, for once doing the correct thing. "All clear!" he shouted, as the rest of the group ran to join him.

"You just don't get it, do you?" Tim narrowed his eyes in anger while trying to type the password into the key pad. "You went off mission, that was a huge mistake." he growled. Roy was about to snark back at him when they were interrupted by a deep, baritone voice.

"Funny, I was about to say the same thing." All four of the boys whipped around in time to see the large, black shelled mammoth smile grotesquely at them.

It wasn't fair, Tim decided, for someone or in this case something to be that well muscled. It was ridiculous, but here, standing in front of him, was what he estimated to be about seven hundred and fifty pounds of smug alien. The heaviest villain he had ever been able to beat was Bane, and the Hispanic was three hundred and fifty pounds lighter, even when juiced up. Not to mention, he had Bruce at his side at the time. Blue would be their best bet, he realized, as he dove out of the way of the incoming alien and slammed its face with his bo staff. He was backhanded and sent flying across the room. As he stood up, groaning, Tim realized that this was going to be a long night.

Jason decided to help out the boys once the speedster from the future was thrown into a tomato stand. While he had only been there to snag some fruit and vegetables and whatever GMOs Luthor was adding to the produce, it was clear that the sidekicks weren't going to last long against the hulking figure that resembled Blue Beetle on steroids. Red Hood ran towards the alien figure and hurled a flash bang grenade at it. While the alien tried to adjust he was going to get some hits in. At least, that was his plan. He hadn't counted on the villain regaining his bearings in time to nail him in the chest with a right hook. Jason winced as he heard the sound of his ribs breaking as he went flying into a row of similar planters to the one his replacement had crashed into minutes before.

"Ahh...nothing like a nice plasma bath to calm the nerves." the alien sighed in relaxation. "And clean off the tomato stains." he added as an afterthought, his armor fading from an angry red back to black. Jason stumbled around the corner in time to see an explosion of light as the alien and Blue Beetle fired similarly shaped plasma cannons at each other at the same time. (He had thought Nightwing would have realized how often he was being hacked by now. As he already knew everything that there was in the protégés files, except for the speedster.) "Seriously? The fruit hurt more." the alien, who he decided to call Black Beetle sneered, as he approached the teenagers. "Trying to suck away all my oxygen? Ha! I hardly even touch the stuff." Black Beetle cackled. Jason vaguely heard his replacement whining to the Beetle kid, but he paid no heed to them. Jason observed as Black Beetle began to rise from within the tornado, before ducking and rolling as the speedster was sent sailing over his head and into a wall, where a giant staple pinned him down.

"Your laser," he yelled at Arsenal, as he sprinted over to the group, "it's the only thing that's made a dent in his armor!" The hero didn't question him and immediately opened fire. If only the others had followed his example.

"Who are you?" demanded Ro-his replacement.

"The guy whose going to save your life if you listen to what I say!" he shouted over Black Beetle's roar as the massive warrior charged them. He, Robin, and Blue Beetle jumped out of range of the giant alien's chest. Arsenal however, stood his ground. Jason ran back and pushed the younger boy out of the way and dove to the side. "When I told you to fire your laser, I didn't mean fire it like a hotheaded idi-aaaaggghh!" There was a sickening pop of his shoulder getting crushed under the giant's fist, that left all the heroes in the cavern wincing, or in Jason's case, screaming in agony. White spots danced across Jason's vision, and he was sure he was going to pass out. Black beetle's sickening laughter broke him from his pain filled world.

"You think that you can beat me in a fight, yet I have easily cut down your greatest warrior." the behemoth snarled as he pressed his foot down on Jason's back crushing his chest up against the floor. "I wonder how long you will last once he is dead." Jason suddenly saw green fire. He hadn't been resurrected just so he could die eight months later. He had a duty. he reflected internally. To protect these idiot kids. A sad duty, but a duty none the less. As Black Beetle continued to gloat, he twisted his hand and grabbed a taser from his jacket. Quietly he set it on the highest setting, and against his better judgement, twisted his arm, stabbing it in the alien's leg. While Jason didn't know if the armor provided some insulation, or if the alien had some sort of circulatory system to carry the charge throughout his body, he suspected that 20,000 volts of electricity would at least cause a slight tingle. He was rewarded with a grunt of pain and the foot applying pressure was lifted off his back as the alien stumbled back snarling.

"Sorry," Jason growled stumbling to his feet while using one hand to clutch his shoulder, "but someone's already beat you there." "Let's go!" he yelled, turning towards the wall where he assumed his replacement had made a way out jogging, as it was the most he could really do with an arm hanging limply from his side and bleeding sluggishly. He had almost made it to the closer corn field when he realized something was wrong. Slowing, he became aware of a disgusting crunching sound and extreme pain in his arm. Looking down, he became aware of the bones-oh God that is motherfucking ugly-slowly being pushed out of his arm and left on his skin, as the holes closed up unnaturally fast, leaving nothing but green scabs and the agony. Suddenly, he was aware that the boys in front of him had stopped and were staring at his arm in a mix of disbelief in horror.

"Señor, what are you?" questioned Blue Beetle in horror.

"Human." he said, starting towards them, only to sigh as they backed away.

"Nice try, but no human does that." Robin nodded at his arm.

"I had some adjustments. Look, we need to get moving, now, before Beetle finds us." he tried to reason.

"Not a chance, until you tell us what you are and agree to be taken to base for questioning." Tim said narrowing his eyes.

"Fine." Jason said with no intention of meeting any of the demands of his replacement. Now, can we get going before-"

"Too late." growled a voice behind him. "I grow tired of our game, Meat." he added annoyed, as his hand morphed into a blade. Quickly concealing his injury from the large warrior, Jason resolved to look at it later. Taking steps back, he was grateful when the heroes remained where they were instead of once again backing away.

"Really, 'cause I can't get enough of it." muttered Jason sarcastically as he slowly reached toward one of the guns in his waist holsters. However, a sudden intake of breath behind him and mumbled, "How many colors do these guys come in anyway?" stopped him. Great.

Tim didn't know what to make of the helmeted man that matched the description of Roy's shooter and Mal's rescuer, but he was knew that the male was the main reason that the group had survived for so long, so he couldn't be that bad. Right now though, Tim just wanted to know how the individual planned on getting out of this situation. Vaguely, he was aware of himself saying "Form up. If we go down, we go down fighting." As well as, Bart's reply.

"I bet that sounded way more inspirational in your head." However, he barely heard the speedster. As the irrational part of his mind that was not just filled with training and backup plans idly began to wonder if this was how Jason felt when he died. With his minutes of life, literally counting down, and the hopeless sense of dread that filled him. Needless to say, Tim was sufficiently shocked when the Green Beetle behind him attacked Black Beetle. He had just stood watching in total confusion as the alien and helmeted vigilante played a deadly game of cat and mouse with the angry mammoth.

 _"Heroes of Earth, I established this link to better coordinate our plan of attack."_ When the green warrior created the telepathic link between them all, he had noticed the helmeted man lurch out of the corner of his eye and felt mental walls slam down on his side of the mental link. The Green Beetle appeared shocked to have been so vehemently denied access to the man's mind and was at loss at what to do. Before any of them could question what was the issue, he was gone, knocking down corn stalks in a desperate and uncoordinated path.

"Ha. Why don't you join your cowardly leader, Meat." Black Beetle taunted.

"He's not our leader!" Arsenal yelled angrily charging into the fight, only to be telekinetically held back by their temporary ally. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" he had yelled in anger at the extraterrestrial, embarrassing Tim, but the Martian would not release his grip. Pulling him back to the group, much to Black Beetle's amusement, he explained, "Black Beetle would like you to get angry and make easy targets. You must have a plan if you wish to fight, or better yet, flee." he placated. "Beetle of Earth, fire your cannon at 27 angstroms precisely."

"Uh, my Scarab's telling me that that would be ineffectual." he said dubiously. "That's a direct quote." he added as an afterthought.

"For one scarab, perhaps, but for two that is a different matter." the alien replied. Morphing their hands into plasma cannons, Blue and Green Beetle fired in tandem, pushing Black Beetle back several feet, despite his best efforts to reach them, eventually knocking him out.

 _"Scarab says that won't last long."_ Blue had stated hurriedly over the mind link.

 _"That is true."_ asserted their Martian companion.

 _"Then what do we do now?"_ wondered Impulse in confusion.

 _"Now we run."_ replied Green Beetle, taking flight.

 _"Wait! What about the red helmeted man? Can you sense him?"_ Tim demanded.

 _"Ese, why would you want to find him?"_ Blue Beetle questioned incredulously over the mind link.

 _"That man is responsible for nearly two hundred criminal deaths in Gotham and he shot Roy-the clone,"_ he added over Arsenal's growl of irritation. "He needs to be brought in for questioning."

 _"I am sorry my companion, but I cannot sense the individual you are searching for, he is simply gone."_ apologized Green Beetle.

" _It's alright. He's bound to turn up again."_ replied Robin sullenly as they shot over corn fields.

He sat with his head in his hands. The group was no doubt wondering why he had dropped all pretense of being a skilled and brave vigilante after he turned tail and ran, but when the beetle had made the mental connection, he had seen the light again. The green fire was eating him up, and their was no escape. His vision was tinted green and the voices were in his ears again. It was all he could do to not collapse from the added strain to his already stretched nerve endings from his arm, so he ran. Blindly, he rushed through the corn field, leaving no regard to the plants he was trampling. He reached his motorcycle and took off, breaking several traffic laws in the process. What was life without some risk? Now though, he sat mulling over his options wondering what he could do about his "issue". He needed to see an experienced telepath, and he knew just who to ask...after all, she understood what it meant to have a dark side.


	9. Demons have killer mental shields

The sound of a lock clicking was audible as the young woman opened the door. The darkened sky provided little light and threw shadows across the living room of her apartment. The woman sighed and tucked her dark, recently grown out, hair behind her ear and locked the door. She let her glamour fall away as she padded over to the stove to picked up the well loved tea kettle only to drop it moments later in alarm. A dark shield coming up to block the kick aimed at her head. "What do you want?" she demanded perturbed.

"You're going to help me with something, Rachel Roth." her assailant growled. "Then again, we both know who you really are Raven."

"Alright, what happened?" demanded Nightwing as he entered the hangar on the War World, the light from Doctor Fate's golden portal closing behind him. "What happened to the rest of my team?!" he exclaimed to the present Leaguers (Dr. Fate and Captain Atom) and the Beetles.

"It's all my fault." Blue Beetle answered solemnly, only to be cut off by Green Beetle.

"That assessment is inaccurate." The Martian argued. Captain Atom sighed as though the argument between the Beetles had occurred several times in the hour he had already spent trying to find the whereabouts of the Team.

"Just tell him what happened." he almost begged.

"We'd won. We were all in this bay and Wondergirl had Mongul hogtied. Then suddenly, a boom tube opened up right beneath our feet! It was instinct, I flew up and out, You know?" he asked as Nightwing opened up his holocomputer. "But before I could do anything else, the boom tubed closed and the others were gone."

"Definitely reading traces of boom tube activity." Nightwing confirmed.

"We think Mongul may have opened up the boom tube as a means of escape, gaining the Team as captives in the bargain. The Team and worse." Captain Atom finished solemnly.

"Impulse had the crystal key." Blue fretted.

"So the priority is making sure that no one uses it to reactivate the War World. Captain Marvel and Rocket are already guarding the key chamber and the Justice League will continue guarding it in shifts until the key is found and the threat is ended." Captain Atom added.

"It's all my fault." Blue Beetle repeated like a broken record.

"Stop. You didn't do anything wrong. We'll figure this out." Nightwing reassured the young hero, placing a hand on his shoulder. "For now-."

"I will ensure he gets home safely." Green Beetle cut in once again.

"No!" pleaded Jaime. "I want to stay, I want to help!"

"You will help, but right now, you need rest. Sleep. Go." Nightwing insisted as Fate opened up another portal whole Green Beetle shepherded a sullen Blue Beetle through it.

"I'm sorry."

"No. Whoever did this, they'll be sorry." Nightwing growled.

Jason cursed aloud as Raven's signature black energy surrounded her form and sent him flying back fourteen feet towards a wall-no doubt an attempt to knock him out-he sent a knife at her feet to distract her. The knife did its job as she disappeared in a portal. Jason backed to the center of the room in order to give himself as much space as possible to defend himself from her inevitable return. A cold breeze on his back was the only warning he got from her warning.

Luckily the breeze was all he needed. He dove forward and rolled, coming up, and turning, ready to deliver the knockout punch-only to find Raven was gone again. He felt the cold breeze again and ducked down and swung his leg out, knocking Raven's feet out from under her, only for the half demoness dissapeared into a portal yet again. The next time she reappeared, Jason was unprepared for the sharps swarms of china aimed at his legs from the teapot. He dove to the side as an arm chair fell backwards, nearly smashing his hand. He shuffled away from a shadow he could see coming around from one side of the arm chair and crawled until he was behind Raven. Diving towards her he attempted to grab her arms only to see the green fire _consuming_ him, _eating_ him up, the voices yelling, _screaming_ , _howling_. He saw the ticking clock, that god forsaken warehouse, Bosnia, his argument with Bruce, the League's disapproving gaze, Dick ignoring him for the first eight months as his time as Robin, stealing the tires off the Batmobile, and a hundred other memories. He somehow heard cawing in agony somehow audible over the shrill voices, the noise. And turned to see a black shadow _his_ size disintegrating. Suddenly, he was snapped back to reality and found himself on top of Raven.

"Jason?" she gasped in horror staring at him with such pity, it made him want to hit something. He sighed, removing his helmet.

"Hi Raven. I need your help with something."

"And anonymously ambushing me in my apartment was clearly the way to get my help. You could have been seriously hurt." she argued, cocking an eyebrow.

"Come on Raven, all heroes know you're a pacifist." Jason winced at her expression. "Sorry." he muttered. "I really need your help. The noi-"

"The demons in your head."

"Excuse me?"

"From what I saw from my mental probe-"

"Attack-"

"You ambushed me in my apartment, it was self defense."

"..."

"The demons in your head," Raven replied steering the conversation back to the reason that he had come to her, "you want me to get rid of them."

"Yes."

"I can't do that." She stated calmly, crossing her legs in a meditative position.

"What?!"

"From what I've seen, Ras al Ghul put your dead body in a Lazarus pit. You know his name translates as Head of the Demon in ancient arabic. What you don't know is that ancient arabic is a dialect of sorcery, if Ras had any substantial mystic talent, he could literally summon an army of demons to do his bidding from the Lazarus pit. Luckily, he has no notable mystic talent. Unfortunately, that means that anyone who comes into contact with the pit is exposed to the excess demonic energy given off by the pit."

"So..."

"So there is literally demonic energy trapped in your body."

"And you can't do anything about it?"

"No. The only person that may be able to help you is a lord of order."

"Well fuck. Don't-"

"-tell Nightwing." she finished for him.

"Good to see you Raven." Jason turned to the apartment window, hoping to leave before the situation could become anymore awkward. He had heard Dick say one time that he and Raven had a private mental link from when they had melded minds. He wondered if it was as easy for Raven to finish Nightwing's sentences as she did his own. He turned and perched on the window sill.

"You can use the energy too your advantage. As a shield of sorts from mental attacks. However, any being trained in mystic arts will be able to sense you nearby." she nodded to him. "You owe me a new tea pot." She nodded to the shattered tea pot laying forgotten in the kitchen.

"Nice seeing you too, Raven." Jason laughed as he dissapeared from the window sill.

Nightwing scanned the hangar bay, analyzing every detail from above. When his search yielded no results he jumped down from the catwalk he was on and began to search the floor. "Airlock's damaged." he muttered to himself. Narrowing his eyes, he scanned the surrounding area, eyes widening when they landed on one of Robin's birdarangs. Yanking it out from the wall it was wedged in, he scanned it with his hologlove for evidence that could help him figure out what really happened to the Team. Blue's story was clearly falsified.

Even if Cassie was otherwise occupied holding Mongul when the boom tube was triggered, Garfield and Karen could fly and Barbara and Tim should have been able to react in time. Also, Blue's acting skills were terrible and his overreaction was the first thing that clued him in to Jaime's lying. But why would Jaime be lying about something as important as the Team's safety? Nightwing's musing was interrupted by a beep from his holocomputer signifying it was done scanning Robin's birdarang. "Looks like birdarang scratched Blue's armor." he muttered to himself again. Robin could nearly throw his weapon as well as Bruce. If he had thrown the weapon and it hit Blue Beetle, he had meant to hit Jaime. Now that he had a good idea of what happened he had to figure out why Jaime betrayed the Team and who was in on it...


	10. Sloppiness is fate's gift

"Repeating today's top story," the attractive young reporter addressed the camera, "the Reach held a special press conference thanking Earth's newest hero." The news channel rolled some previously filmed footage of the Reach ambassador that had enthralled the public in the last few months.

"And in my role as the Reach's ambassador to your world, I want to take this opportunity to thank this great hero. A hero who lost singlehandedly saved the planet Earth from the War World. He saved your lives, he saved our lives, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Blue Beetle." The noseless alien stepped down from the podium, stepping out of the way for the teenage hero as Jason nearly did a spit take. He was forced to watch dumbly as the young hero lied to the press.

"Thank you, thank you all, but it is I who should express gratitude to you ambassador, for giving a normal, _average_ human being like me, the power of the Reach, the power to save the world." Jason's eyes narrowed between his mask, he needed to some investigation. It looked like some more remote hacking of Nightwing's holo computer was in order. Unbeknownst to him, roughly 5,000 miles away, the Azarathian was interrupted from her meditation.

 _"If only you knew how much you're like Dick."_

"Haven't you already scanned every inch of this place?" M'Gann wondered aloud as she watched Nightwing's hologlove scan the surrounding area.

"Yeah, but I'm obviously capable of missing obvious clues." he snapped walking away from her. "I totally should have noticed evidence of Blue Beetle's defection after Green Beetle "fixed" his scarab." Nightwing carried on, some distress seeping into his voice. M'Gann put a hand in his shoulder. Nightwing was vaguely aware of some far off noise on the War World, but ignored it in favor of listening to what M'Gann had to say.

"That's my fault." she argued. "You asked me to scan Green's mind and I vouched for him without delving deep." she cast her eyes downwards. "I was so afraid of using mybpowers after what I did to Aqualad. I allowed Green Beetle and his scarab to feed me exactly what the Reach wanted us to believe." Her voice took on a more somber tone. "So Blue trusted Green, and was turned by him. And somehow abducted the Team. All on me." she sighed turning to her friend of many years.

"Except you never would have been in that position if I had trusted you with the secret of Aqualad's deep cover mission." Nightwing insisted. "I put you, Kaldur, Artemis, the whole team in unacceptable danger." A small smile came to M'Gann's face.

"So, this is our guilt off. I say I messed up, you say you messed up worse. Dick, we've both made mistakes, and we both need to get over ourselves." she added, only to be cut off by shots.

Normally Jason would have used a different method to get to the War World, but he was short on time and the secret father box that Bruce had hidden in a "whelmingly penetrable" vault in the Batcave was practically begging him to steal it. He was considering not returning it just to piss Bruce off when the old man returned. If he returned. Jason had to admit, the files on Dick's holo computer didn't make the League's case look good. He needed them to return, so he could give them a piece of his mind about their sidekick policy.

Jason had used a boom tube that the father box was capable of producing, and had been dropped in the hangar bay next to the heroes. Unfortunately, "next to" was a generous way of saying the position of the hangar bay that he landed in compared to the one that Miss Martian and Nightwing were occupying. There was also the small problem with the fact that he had been spit out of the portal right in front of a patrol of Reach soldiers. Briefly, he wondered if the father box was capable of strife. It wouldn't be the weirdest thing an alien device that he encountered could do. Apparently Dick and M'Gann were so invested in their conversation because they didn't notice him until he literally dove through the doorway and rolled behind the wall for cover, hissing as a stray laser shot singed his calf.

"You!" Nightwing growled.

"Me." Jason grunted just as intelligently, leaning around the side of the door and returning fire at the Reach foot soldiers. M'Gann thrust a hand out and forced all but two of the soldiers back into the wall behind them, knocking the rest out. Nightwing charged the closest soldier dodging two rushed shots that went wide. He smashed the guard's stomach and then face mask when the alien doubled over. Nightwing turned to the other guard only for a shot to ring out as Jason nailed him right between the eyes.

"We don't kill!" Nightwing angrily exclaimed.

"You don't." Jason agreed. "But do you honestly believe that they don't deserve it?" Before Jason could further antagonize the older man, M'Gann asked him, "What are you doing here?"

Jason avoided her question by countering, "What are you doing here?"

"That's none of your business." Nightwing said roughly. "Your coming with us." To the vigilante's surprise, the anti-hero just shrugged his shoulders before turning around.

"Slap 'em on, Copper." he muttered loud enough for both heroes to hear. To Nightwing's credit, he wasn't phased by the abrupt turn of events and closed a pair of handcuffs around the vigilantes wrists.

"I have half a mind to leave you here." glared Nightwing.

"But you can't leave anyone, even the guy who shot one of your best friends and burned up his Mommy and Daddy alone. Who knows what the Reach might do to me?" Jason pantomimed fear. "Tell me," he said, his voice taking on a darker quality, "how are Black Canary and Green Arrow?" Miss Martian had to telekinetically restrain Nightwing from punching him in the face. Nightwing tilted his head to the side, as though he and M'Gann were having a mental conversation. An unhappy expression spread across his face and it was clear that M'Gann was telling him something that made to sense, but he didn't like. Dick huffed and turned to leave the hangar when there was a rumbling and banging from another door.

"Sphere!" cheered M'Gann as the piece of New Genesis technology that closer resembled an over enthusiastic puppy rolled towards them. Jason froze. He didn't know if sphere was like an actual dog in that she would be able to recognize him despite how much he had changed. It appeared that luck was somewhat on his side because the ball seemingly ignored him in favor of Miss Martian and Nightwing. "Can you take us to Superboy?" questioned M'Gann excitedly. In response, the sphere folded out into her motorcycle form.

"I think that's a yes." smiled Nightwing. He seemed to then remember that Jason was standing handcuffed behind him. Turning, Nightwing glared at him while M'Gann levitated Jason into the vehicle. "In the front where we can see him." Nightwing said loud enough for Jason to hear. Nightwing and Miss Martian sat down as well and they were off. Sphere made disorienting turns and jumps through the labyrinth of a space ship before rounding a corner where a group of soldiers were clearly impatiently waiting for the door they were facing to open. However, when the machine's trundling was audible to them, all the soldiers opened fire. M'Gann floated into the air while Nightwing launched himself from the vehicle. Jason watched in mild interest as he picked the lock on the cuffs. It was ridiculous how sloppy Dick was getting, and Jason was read to call him out on it. He watched as the two senior team members made quick work of the horribly outmatched aliens just in time for the door to open revealing Superboy and the freshmen, plus several new faces.

"-soldiers waiting for us." Both groups appeared shocked to see the other group standing in front of them. "Hey fearless leader, better late than never." jibed the original Harper.

"Everyone's safe?" Nightwing questioned, ignoring the insult.

"For now." he muttered.

"The crystal key?"

"Gone." Arsenal glanced at the combatants behind them. "And we better be to before one of them-"

"What's _he_ doing here?!" demanded Connor staring past the two humans and at Jason lounging on sphere. Jason regarded him cooly, smirking behind the mask.

"I'm playing prisoner." he replied. Jumping out of the seat and crouching, he straightened out. "Well, I was anyway. Birdboy's getting sloppy, didn't even think about disarming me." he nodded at Nightwing who looked once again ready to punch him."Well newbies, it's been an enlightening experience, but I haven't found the information I'm looking for." Tossing the handcuffs at Nightwing, he pulled out the father box. "B isn't very good at hiding this, is he?" he smirked at Dick and Barbara's shock along with Robin's confusion Bruce clearly hadn't told the kid about the secret machine he saved from Darkseid's last visit to Earth. _"Adios."_ he added, hinting at their teammate's betrayal as he activated the father box and fell through the portal.


	11. The Red Hood

"This wasn't right." Nightwing thought to himself staring at the holo computer. Throughout the following weeks, most of the members of the Team reported seeing flashes of red or the Red Hood himself tailing them. However, when the heroes had changed into their costumes and tried to pursue the man, he was gone. Nightwing was starting to notice a trend, though. Only the heroes that were not legally adults or inexperienced, were being aided. In fact, Roy's shooter was now both Wally's and Connor's assailant. The former had been taunted into attacking the anti-hero at his house in Palo Alto, resulting in two broken legs and a broken arm. Connor had been jumped when he was alone at the Blüdhaven makeshift headquarters. While Connor had recovered from his burns and kryptonite poisoning relatively fast, the former Kid Flash was going stir crazy. He had been stuck in the Watchtower's makeshift infirmary for the past four weeks due to the fact that his accelerated healing would cause too many unnecessary questions at a hospital. The speedster still was required to remain in the infirmary for another day, just to play it safe.

He had just gotten word from Aqualad and Artemis that the Light and the Reach were going to have a summit to discuss their plans and grievances. Frankly, he thought that was a terrible idea. While he didn't know the members of the Reach well, the members of the Light barely got along as it was without the added variables of the Reach and the Team. Also, it was a convenient time to collect evidence to help the League members trapped on Rimbor. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. While he was older, he still saw the Leaguers as his surrogate family he missed his "uncles", "aunts", and adoptive father. It had not been an easy discussion with the remaining League members that Bruce still had a secret fatherbox and the man would no doubt be annoyed upon his return that the League knew. However, his return was looking less and less likely each day.

Returning to the problem before him, he allowed himself a moment of self pity. "Bruce would have known what to do." he thought bitterly. Ever since the accused Leaguers had left, he had been second guessing all of the decisions he had made and facing a lot of self doubt. It didn't help that certain members of the Team such as Connor and La'Gann were disappointed in his decision to keep the secret of Operation Goddess, (Artemis's undercover mission) and M'Gann seemed beyond traumatized. Realistically, she seemed in as bad condition as after the (in the words of Green Arrow), "never-to-be-spoken-of-again-Failsafe-simulation." And was still scared of her own shadow, despite giving him a pep talk on the War World. Finishing up creating the list of the squads the Team would be divided into for the Summit mission in three days, he closed out the list, aware of the outside source copying the information.

He knew the red helmeted man was hacking his computer and was hoping that he'd show tonight. The Team would kill three birds with one stone if they were able to bring in the members of the light with damning evidence, acquit the League, and being the Red Hood into custody. He had learned the man's name after interrogating some of Black Mask's grunts after the criminal's illegal weapons shipments into Gotham had been hit. Unable to shake the feeling that there was something familiar about the Team's mysterious stalker/assailant, he began to compile a list of facts from the incidents involving the man.

1.)He's six feet tall and well built.

2.)A skilled hand to hand combatant and marksman. Also, he possesses impressive stealth skills-suggesting that he was well trained.

3.)He seemed to have a vendetta against the Team's older members.

4.)He seemed to be almost protective of the younger members of the Team.

5.)He knew who Nightwing was under the mask.

6.)It's suspected he knows who Batman is under the mask.

 _I know you're there..._

This list was so contradictory, he wanted to bang his head on something. No known hero or villain possessed all these qualities, and he was ninety percent sure that it wasn't Clayface. Unless the man typed something back, he only had three audio files to analyze and try to find tells in. Deleting the file, he left the room to announce the mission to the Team.

 _...about time golden boy._


	12. Revelations and lack of diplomacy

Jason smirked to himself from his perch on a crevice high above Aqualad and the disguised Miss Martian and Artemis, as an inevitable fight broke out. The Light couldn't work together by themselves, forget working with strangers. In fact, a fight had already broken out, and barely resolved. Though he wasn't in a good tactical position, (if any of the gathered people looked up before he revealed himself, he was screwed) he had a clear view of said individuals. Focusing on the conversation below, he caught the end of Aqualad's question.

"-and the rest will soon return to Earth and once again sway public opinion to their side?" "Kaldur's boldness in asking questions was too suspicious." Jason mused. "He was trying too hard to sound detached, and his questions resembled an interrogator's." The narrowing of Savage's eyes confirmed that Jason was not the only one to notice Aqualad's lack of subtly, but the Neanderthal chose not to comment on it, instead answering the question.

"Superman and those accused with him will never leave Rimbor. The attack we forced them to make on that world, plus a few well placed bribes, has guaranteed their conviction." At this point the Reach ambassador, anticipating Aqualad's next question, added his piece.

"And the Green Lanterns are forbidden by Guardian treaty from returning to Earth. Now that we've, convinced UN Secretary Zhang to welcome us here. As for public opinion, I wouldn't be concerned. Though the tide has turned to a certain degree," the ambassador freely admitted the tactical mistakes he had made, which had resulted in abundant civil unrest "it will be a simple matter to build on a foundation of half-truths we have already used to discredit the League, in order to discredit them...again?" The pompous alien finished in confusion at Ras al Ghul's confident stride towards the disguised Artemis.

"Great one?" she questioned, her confusion shared by all of the surrounding individuals, with a few obvious exceptions.

"The gasp that escaped her mouth when Ras grabbed her necklace really didn't help her screwed." Jason thought to himself, as Ras ripped away the glamour charm. (He had learned the name and purpose of the amulet that would otherwise be a hindrance in fight, from Nightwing's computer.)

"Artemis." growled out Savage in obvious fury.

"I don't understand, I thought Artemis was dead." audibly wondered a very confused Reach ambassador.

"So did we a, but it appears Tigress is Artemis." growled Savage in rage that he had been tricked into revealing his plans.

"This is a glamour charm, created I'd wager by Zatanna, or Dr. Fate to hide Artemis's true identity." said hero glared at Ras.

"But Kaldurah'm killed Artemis. If she lives, in disguise as his lieutenant, then that means," the ambassador started.

"That means, that Aqualad duped them all, including his own father." the Black Beetle finished in morbid amusement.

The ambassador sighed in mock disappointment, before pointing at the previously incognito heroes. "Kill them both." he ordered, nonchalant.

"No, you will not kill my son!" Manta shouted, stepping protectively in front of Aqualad, revealing the paternal feelings he had for his son. (Jason had found information on that can of worms by hacking the mainframe of Nightwing's replacement computer. Dick really needed to stop putting highly confidential, life threatening files on it. That was just plain arrogant.) Two gunshots brought him back to reality as both Artemis and Kaldur toppled over.

Deathstroke replaced his hand gun in its holster. "The Light takes care of its own." he cruely rasped.

"Kaldur." choked out Manta in an uncanny imitation of a bad soap opera.

"It is too late Father, I have already...won." the atlantean smiled serenely, pretending to die. (Don't put your secrets on an easily hackable device you figurative and literal, Dick!) A hologram of himself, projected from Kaldur's open palm.

"If you are watching this, then your summit is truly over. The Light and the Reach deserve each other, both sides playing at being partners. But the Reach believes the Light to be their naive tools of conquest, when in fact, the light has manipulated their efforts from day one." There were glares, bared teeth, and uncomfortable shuffling present in both groups. Savage was incensed.

"Shut. This. Off." he growled at Deathstroke, anger that his carefully crafted plans were being ruined gleaming in his eyes.

"How?" asked the mercenary, lost. A screen with pictures of the alien wanted posters of six of the Justice League appeared next to the hologram of Kaldur.

"It was the Light that brought Earth to the Reach's attention by sending the Justice League to Rimbor. The Light set their trap, and Reach snapped at the bait, fulfilling their desire to thrust our world into the galactic spotlight, part of their perverse survival of the fittest scheme for the planet, which they believe will transform the Earth and the Light into the eventual rulers of the Milky Way. " Another screen appeared, this time of the Reach ambassador and Black Manta shaking hands. "Though the Light made a deal to help the Reach take Earth," Kaldur continued, "they have also sabotaged the Reach's efforts from day one." Photos of the four runaways appeared on the holographic screen. "They kept the enhanced meta teens out of the Reach's hands. They added a neutralizing agent to the Reach's drink, so the Earth would not become servile." Yet another screen appeared, this time with everyones' least favorite reporter G. Gordon Godfrey confronting the ambassador. Kaldur added, "They turned public opinion against the Reach, and they intentionally allowed the Team access to the scarab temple in Bialiya to cleanse Blue and Green Beetle. So you see, any agenda either side imagined they shared was not but a carefully crafted illusion. I trust I have shattered that illusion, as well as, whatever remains of this sorry alliance. Goodnight."

"Kaldur." Black Manta started hoarsely in horror, "Kaldur, what have you done?" Savage chose to answer the question for the shell shocked father.

"He has in death, done more to damage my plans than any living creature has wrought in fifty thousand years. I'd be impressed if I wasn't so-" The prehistoric man's menacing ranting was cut off by a visibly even more furious ambassador.

"Nauugghh!" he eloquently began. "You Earthlings are a pestilence and a plague! You dare sabotage us? Dare betray us? Have you forgotten who controls the War World?!" The Light is fortunate we do not carve up your planet as we speak!" The raging alien shouted coming nose to nose with the Neanderthal.

"That would indeed impress, as I have the War World's crystal key." Savage countered, letting key information slip, with just as much ferocity.

"That is all I needed to know." Aqualad cut in standing up, much to the shock of the two villains, if their hanging jaws were anything to go by. Black Manta was certainly awed by his son's miraculous return from the grave.

"Kaldur?" he asked haltingly, as if not believing his own eyes. "You...are...alive?"

"Yes." his son replied coldly, not even sparing his father a glance.

"If you would?" asked Artemis smugly to Ras al Ghul. Jason could tell that she was enjoying every moment of the villain's shock. She sighed melodramatically, pushing herself up. "And I always heard that the great one was such a gentleman."

"Impossible." Savage glared. "Deathstroke killed you both."

"Just for a little while. After all, I wouldn't want to do any permanent damage...to my best friends." The mercenary's voice started off at a baritone, before becoming lighter to Miss Martian's recognizable alto as she shifted to her normal appearance. "How many misdirections and Hollywood special effects will do instead?" she finished smugly, probably partly due to the fact that Savage looked very uncomfortable for an immortal Neanderthal upon having a broadsword levitated inches away from his neck.

"For we value our true friends, and unlike you we are not short on them." Aqualad finished. On cue, squads Alpha and Beta appeared from various side entrances.

"Hey there Vandy. You miss me." smiled Wally, his legs fully healed.

For his part, Savage did not falter or appear concerned. Rather, he glared contemptuously at both Aqualad and Miss Martian. It was now or never. Ras opened his mouth to say something, before he was cut off. "See, Ras, if you were more diplomatic, I could have told you all about the Justice League's undercover agents." Everyone in the cavern craned their heads to look at the figure hidden in shadow standing on a ledge far above them.

"Who are you?" snarled Savage.

"Ask him. He knows, in fact, it's his fault I'm here. Not that I'm complaining." the figure who had now been identified as male by the Team, nodded at the Demon's Head. Nightwing chose that time to join the conversation. "I didn't know you had a third kid, Ras." he smirked teasingly. Before the villain could reply with a scathing remark, the figure burst out laughing.

"You wish, Golden Boy." Nightwing's face drained of blood. His voice rang across the link. "M'Gann, it's him. Try to read his mind."

"I already tried. His mind is heavily shielded. I'll need full focus to breach his shields."

"Not an option." muttered Nightwing across the link. "Old fashioned interrogation it is then." he added.

Meanwhile, Ras had a lot to answer to. "He's the black bird." The near immortal man answered the unasked question. Savage's eyes narrowed in anger.

"What. Did. You. Do?"

"His death was not part of the deal I had made, and he was more than collateral damage. I planned to right the wrong and return the Detective's rogue son to him. He was changed by the pit, however, deranged. It appears that he has recovered." muttered Ras loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Oh, I'm more than recovered." the figure growled, flipping from his perch, landing in front of the Demon's Head. This drew gasps from most of the Team, who recognized the man now that he was in the light. "In fact, I have a few things-" he growled, before being cut off by Ras al Ghul.

"You should be grateful that I brought you back." growled the much older man. "I have nothing to justify to you." he drew his sword. The red helmeted man drew his knife and fell into a fighting stance.

"Do you intend to fight me with my own weapon, boy?" Ras mocked. The man straightened and shrugged.

"No, I intend fight you with your knife and a gun." he quipped, before firing off several rounds, all hastily blocked by the Arabian. This seemed to signal the start of the fight, as the heroes all jumped into action and the cave soon was awash with battle cries and roars.

Jason fired his clip at Ras before the man charged him. He could move really fast for a six hundred year old guy. The fight seemed relatively even until the cave was filled with League of Shadows ninjas, about a third of which rushed to aid their master in a show of favoritism. Pulling out his second gun, Jason fired the remaining bullets in his first one at Ras to keep the man busy, while he cut down the ninjas. Turning around to shoot at Black Beetle, he left himself open as he turned back towards the man, Ras struck. He barely felt the sword impaling his thigh. "Aaaarg!" he growled. However, instead of stumbling away from the Demon's Head or collapsing, like the man undoubtedly expected him to do, Jason charged him. Tackling the now unarmed villain he held him at gunpoint. "Don't say that I should be grateful you resurrected me."

"You are in debt to me for restoring your life." growled the old man.

"No, you owed Bruce. Don't try to lie to me Ras. You told the truth to Savage. You felt indebted to him. I'm your way of getting even. I don't owe you anything." he suddenly became aware of the battles ending around him, all the villains present were either fleeing or unconscious. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nightwing begin to approach him. "Oh, and one more thing. It's Red Hood, not Black bird." he growled pulling the trigger as Nightwing's fist impacted in the back of his helmet and everything went black.


	13. Deep thoughts and Secret Codes

He wasn't going to deny that he didn't enjoy hitting the enigma who had hurt his friends, and maybe he hit somewhat excessively hard. Roy, Wally, and Connor all almost died, It was justified. Swabbing a sample of blood from the man's leg wound for DNA testing, he walked over to Kaldur, who was sullenly staring at his downed father. Sensing his longtime friend approaching, Kaldur began, "I had hoped to end this tonight, but Savage escaped with Klarion, as did Black Beetle and the Reach's head scientist. Luthor and Queen Bee never showed. And both Talia and Nyssa al Ghul will no doubt-"

"Kaldur are you kidding? You won!" M'Gann interrupted him.

"Won? Won?! Dude you triumphed!" Wally cut her off.

"You crippled the Reach and literally broke the Light in half. Even took down Deathstroke before the summit. And since we holographically recorded the whole deal, we'll be able to use the bad guys own words against them to clear the Justice League!"

She was then tackled from behind in a flying hug. "What was that?" she said laughing at Beast Boy, who was hugging her.

"I'm just still so glad that you're alive! And that Aqualad's not a traitor!" the changling smiled. Suddenly he turned to Nightwing. "No more faking anyone's death for at least a year! Got it?" he demanded.

"Seconded." Wally added laughing.

Robin suddenly made his presence known to the others by walking over. "I hate to break up this touching reunion, but we still have to get Mr. Melodramatic Hood to one of the Watchtower's holding cells. Before he wakes up and runs away again."

"Right." Robin you take him up to the Watchtower. We don't have a choice about where to hold him, and we need to interrogate him. Use your override code and just tell Captain Atom that he's the guy that shot Roy, broke most of Wally's limbs, and poisoned Connor."

"He did what?!" Artemis looked ready to attack the both Team's assailant and rescuer.

"M'Gann, can you secure him in the bioship and drop Robin and the perp off at the nearest zeta tube?" At her nod of confirmation, Nightwing dragged the man over to the bioship. Once he had been properly secured with straps in one of the ship's organic seats and a tourniquet had been applied on the man's leg wound, Nightwing stepped off the ship and sent them off, returning to direct the rest of the Team.

Tim sat in the bioship thinking. He knew that the man killed and that was not what a hero did, but he had saved him, Arsenal, Impulse, Blue, and Green Beetle from Black Beetle for no apparent personal gain. Maybe that made him an anti-hero, like Selina.

"Is everything alright, Robin?" questioned Miss Martian.

"Uh, yeah." he replied too slowly. "Everything's fine."

"Robin, I don't have to read your mind to know that you're lying. You're terrible at it." she added. He sighed. "What's up?"

"It's just, him." he nodded at their captive. He attacked Roy, Wally, and Connor, and hurt Arrow and Canary, but he also saved me, Green Beetle, Arsenal, Impluse, Blue Beetle, Mal, and technically everyone in the hall when Despero attacked. Is he an ally, or a villain?"

"I still can't tell his motives, but I'm sure Canary or Batman can crack him in an interrogation session or two." she reassured him. If Bruce got back. He was grateful she didn't voice the fear that had slowly increased among the League and Team as the accused six spent more time on Rimbor. He was broken out of his musings by Miss Martian announcing they had reached the zeta tube. Wrapping his arm around the man's arm, he signaled M'Gann to lower the line. He rappelled into the empty ally and leaned the unconscious figure against the wall. He felt around on the otherwise blank brick wall.

"C'mon, c'mon." he muttered feeling around for a certain brick. Finding the loose brick, he pushed down on it, opening the wall to the zeta scanner and keyboard. Pulling out the collapsible keyboard, he set up another zeta designation "A14:Prisoner A6. Duplicate designation already existent." the tube drilled out.

"Huh?" So he was a former hero. Well, let's see who he is. "Ovverride. Watchtower TD3."

"Recognized:B20 Robin, B13 Robin." The shock hit him so hard that he almost dropped the villain. No, not a villain or faceless assailant, _Jason_. The boy he had looked up to, who he had strived to one day equal, who he had always been warned to not be like. A former hero. Now he had attacked Team members and killed criminals. He was so shocked, he didn't realize that Jason had regained conscience until he was knocked out.

Jason woke up to the uncomfortable sensation of his molecules being disassembled and reassembled from Earth to Space. "...B13 Robin." He heard a gasp and felt his slack jawed replacement almost drop him.

"Bruce would have the kid's head for getting distracted." he thought to himself, as he socked the kid in the back of the head as hard as he could in his woozy state from blood loss. Tim stumbled and attempted to defend himself, but two jabs later he was out like a light. Dragging the kid to where he remembered where the infirmary was, Jason strapped his unconscious form down to a medical gurney and pulled out an IV from a medical closet and attached the appropriate blood bag to it. His healing may have been accelerated, but it still was a good idea to get some more blood. Rolling up his sleeve, he stuck the needle in his vein relaxing and waiting half an hour for all the blood to drain from the bag.

Sitting in the infirmary, where he could easily be jumped by a hero was excruciating on his already shot nerves, but he remained alone with the exception of the unconscious teenager next to him. Once the bag was empty, he disconnected the IV, tossed the needle and empty bag in the trash, and pulled out some medical tape, ace bandages, and antibiotic ointment. He applied the ointment and was halfway through wrapping the bandage with medical tape, when he became aware of struggling on the bed next to him. Finishing wrapping his leg, he hobbled over to his replacement.

When the kid saw him, he stopped struggling immediately. Jason stared at the kid's eyes through hishelmet and the kid stared back through his mask. After a while of tense silence, his successor finally cracked. "What are you?" questioned the teen suspiciously.

"Excuse me?"

"A hero? A villain? An anti-hero?" Tim questioned more insistently, only for Jason to start laughing.

"Really kid? That's what you want to know? I suppose you can think of me as a anti-hero if you really want to categorize me."

"Why did you go after the senior heroes, but save everyone else?"

"Think about what you just said, kid." Jason seemed to be glaring through the helmet. Suddenly, it hit Tim.

"None of us were heroes when you died." When he didn't receive an answer he started trying to look around from where he was strapped to a table. "Jason? Red Hood? Hello?" he asked, only for the world to go black again.

Jason felt bad for knocking the kid out twice, he really did. Okay, not really, but he needed his replacement as a bargaining chip so he could say his piece. Unfastening the kid from the bed, he removed his belt, gloves, shoes, and cape. Then, Jason grabbed some rope and began tying the current Robin up and pulling some duct tape out of the medical cabinet. Why duct tape was in a medical cabinet of all places, he wasn't sure, but it served its purpose. He wrapped a whole piece around Tim's head and mouth and tore the end of the tape off of the role.

Lifting the younger male over his shoulder Jason carried him over to the computer and began hacking the comms. Fifteen undisturbed minutes later, he was in. Picking the League wide frequency, he tapped out the message in morse code. _You can't run from your failures Bruce. I'm waiting for you at the Watchtower._


	14. Grudge match

p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"The League's founders plus Icon and the Lanterns stared in shock as Hal Jordan dispersed his spaceship construct. "Are we too late?" Superman voiced the heroes' fear as they regarded the rubble of Mount Justice. Batman strode forward and placed a hand on the last kryptonian's shoulder while staring up at the sky. His gaze drew the other heroes'. The Team descended from the sky and took their places in front of their superiors. Many of the returning heroes hanging jaws widened even more upon seeing Kaldurah'm at the head of sphere once again wearing his Aqualad uniform. Batman took it all in stride though./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Aqualad, what happened here?" he demanded./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Fear not. The crisis has passed, though at a terrible cost." the atlantean somberly replied, as tears wound their way down several team members cheeks and Karen buried her face in Mal's chest. Batman turned his gaze on Nightwing, eyes narrowing slightly. Nightwing dismounted from Sphere in her cycle form and walked towards the group./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Wally's...gone." he said evenly, trying to convey what had happened to one of the League's beloved speedsters. At their expressions of utter confusion, he gave up beating around the bush. "He ceased to exist saving the world from the Reach."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""No..."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Oh, Hera."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Kid had his whole life ahead of him..."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Barry and Iris must be devastated..."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""What about Artemis?"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Batman cut off the other leaguers exclamations of shock. "Am I correct in assuming the cause of this was different than that of the message in morse code that has been repeating in my comm link for the last hour and half?" he questioned, jaw twitching./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""What?"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""What do you mean?"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Why didn't you tell us?"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Who is trying to talk to you..."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Where is it coming from?" demanded Nightwing sharply./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""The Watchtower." The color slowly drained from Nightwing's face./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""That's where T-Robin is." gasped Batgirl. "He's with our mystery man."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""No," argued Nightwing, "he's with Captain Atom and the Red Hood."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""One of Joker's own aliases?" Batman immediately snapped up from his wrist computer decoding the message. However, Nightwing wasn't listening, as he was busy trying to reach Captain Atom or Robin./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Captain Atom do you come in?" All he got on the line was static. "Damnit Nate answer me." He tried Robin's comm. "Robin, come in this is Nightwing." "Nothing." he added, turning towards Batman./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""We need to get to the Watchtower right now." Batgirl stated./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You clearly know the Red Hood best and have a reliable suspicion on who he is." Batman stated. "He says he's waiting for me at the Watchtower and clearly has Robin. Do you think he will attack if I go?"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Hold on a minute..."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Robin's our teammate too!"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""We can help."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Don't do this by yourself Bats..."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""He's part of my family too, B." stated Nightwing./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""He's part of our family." stated Connor, coming to stand next to Nightwing. The rest of the Team followed his example. Batman glared at them for a long moment before relenting at the Team's stubbornness./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""...Fine." growled the Bat. "We need to go now." he added./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""The zeta tube at the mountain was destroyed, the nearest zeta is in Ivy Town."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Let's go."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Artemis met them at the zeta tube, disguised in a condemned warehouse half an hour later./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""How long were you waiting here?" asked Nightwing./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Long enough." muttered Artemis. "Show me the guy that attacked Ollie, Dinah Roy, and..." she caught herself before she said her boyfriend's name, but it was as if she dropped a bombshell. She dragged a hand across her eyes and sniffed. "Let's go." she rasped. The zeta tube was soon drilling off the heroes' designations. "Recognized Nightwing B01, Batman 02..." Once the whole group had materialized in the space station, Batman began to give orders. "Spread out in groups of two or more. The Red Hood is dangerous and should be treated with extreme caution. You've all been briefed by Nightwing,-"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""That won't be necessary." a smooth voice cut him off. A smooth emyoung/em voice. That was emvery/em familiar./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You!" growled Batgirl before running from the zeta tube exit and towards the communications hub./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I wouldn't do that if I were you." said the man that was surely smirking behind the mask while the rest of the League filed out behind her to the sight of the Red Hood holding a gun to an unconscious Robin. "Wow, you brought the whole band. I'm surprised. Maybe you have changed ." he emphasized the name while glaring at Batman from the behind the mask. He then turned his attention to the boy in his that was stirring slightly. "Then again, maybe not." Robin suddenly snapped awake and began to struggle and scream things from behind his gag. "Woah there replacement. Cool it. I'm trying to have a civilized conversation here."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Why have you been attacking the League." growled Batman. "We won't submit to your attacks against us or pay a ransom."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""It's more complicated than that."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""We won't be part of a half cooked revenge plan."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""It's more than that too. Your brute strength and holier-than-though attitude can only go so far to save the people. What good does plugging a leaking dam with sand do? Eventually the water gets through and the hole widens."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Is that what you believe society to be? A leaking dam?" demanded Connor./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I emknow/em it's one." replied the man just as stubbornly. Nightwing put a placating hand on Superboy's shoulder to calm the clone. If his suspicions to who the Red Hood was were right, it would be pointless to argue with him; Jason was one of the most stubborn people Dick had ever met. Dick stepped forward to ask a question of his own./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Why are you targeting the older heroes?"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Confused exclamations of "What?" we're audible in the heroes./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Care to elaborate?" the figure smirked./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Red Arrow, Green Arrow, Black Canary, myself, Artemis, Aqualad, and K-Kid Flash." his voice caught on the end of the accusation./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""That's not all." sing-songed the man./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You attacked Despero, Reach soldiers, and Ras al Ghul as well." Nightwing muttered. "What side are you on?"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""The one that saves them." Red Hood nodded at the Team./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""emWhat?/em"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Do they really understand what they've signed up for? Have they seen the worst that society has to offer? The smiling freaks and crooks? The darkness that seeps up from the cracks? The killers, rapists, and thieves? The sick people that want to watch the world burn? Because I bet they haven't. Have they stuck there hands in the filth and honestly tried to save a sinking city, gasping for air as it slowly rots from the inside? Are they ready to lay down their lives for the cause?!" Red Hood appeared ready to continue ranting but was cut off by Nightwing's computer chiming./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Blood sample analyzed. Cross referencing. 90% match with designation number 1RII."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Nightwing swore very violently./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""The truth hurts, doesn't it?"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Why would you do all this?"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I just told you, you idiot. Bringing these kids into the game, with vague promises of becoming heroes kills them."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""After what happened, we mourned-"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I don't give a damn if you mourned me. I waited for you, I believed that you were coming to save me." the Red Hood's breath hitched, "And then the clock hit zero and for that millisecond where I choked through a collapsed lung, I knew you weren't coming. And realized that this isn't the life for kids. They're not your emgood soldiers/em." he spat viciously at Batman, whose mouth was hanging open and was for once at loss for words./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Who is he?" questioned Superman urgently./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""One of my greatest failures..." muttered Batman, but it was as if he had yelled it, the room was so silent./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Did I actually get through your thick skull?" gasped the Red Hood in mock surprise, lowering his gun slightly, but his slight lapse in concentration was all Robin needed. He elbowed the man in the stomach, smashed his knee into the man's groin, and hit the helmet as hard as he could with his bo staff, cracking it. He reeled his arm back for a sucker punch, but the Red Hood had recovered. He fainted to the left and jabbed right, knocking Tim over the cat walk they were on. Jason followed after him and landed next to him, tackling him before any of the other heroes could get near and pulled out a knife./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Dammit replacement. Did you learn that move by fighting in Crime Alley or did you just learn that by watching videos of me train when I wore the suit?" he asked, shoving Robin in front of him in order to form a barrier between him and the assembled heroes./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I was able to knock out Replacement here, in three moves while light headed from blood loss. The sidekicks are undertrained, underprepared, and will end up dead. And before you say your not sidekicks," he added turning towards the group of bristling young heroes, "that's all you'll be until you understand the world out there. I thought I knew how cruel the world could be growing up on my own and I payed for it."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""And what makes you think that we don't know what we're doing?!" demanded Cassie angrily. Jason had already been KIA long before she joined the Team, so Wondergirl wasn't fully aware of who she was talking to./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Jason leveled her gaze with a death stare of his own that could rival the bat glare. "Because I was just like you once. Rash, impulsive, passionate. And I ended up blown up!"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""No. Fucking. Way." Batgirl gasped./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Okay stop leaving us in the dark who is this guy?" Barry demanded. He was promptly ignored./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""If you're looking for a fight is with Batman and I. Your death was our fault." Nightwing growled./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Your damn right it was. But I can't condone more kids playing at heroes being led to their deaths. And you won't either." Jason hauled Tim to his feet and took a step forward dragging him. "I'm going to leave right now, and you are going to let me, or Replacement here gets a bullet in his head."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I'm not going to loose another brother." Nightwing hostilely shot back./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I'm not going to loose another son." Batman growled at the same time. Jason paused/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Such determination and devotion. I almost believed you've changed." Jason took another step dragging Tim who was making an awful lot of noise through the gag./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Jesus Christ why are you so loud?!" demanded Jason angrily. Nightwing chose that moment to strike. The hero dove forward, tackling his comrade turned enemy, and what happened next could be described as a savage beat down. For a moment or two the men attempted to wrestle each other into submission before springing apart, breathing heavily. Jason charged forwards and threw a punch that skimmed Dick's chest as he moved to get out of the way. Nightwing retaliated with kick that was blocked. His next punch, however, was not. It connected with Jason's shoulder and unbalanced him enough to knock him over, which Nightwing used to his advantage to rain punches down on Jason's helmet until said individual managed to catch his hand and pull causing a resounding crack that was the sound of a wrist being dislocated. Artemis took a step forwards to help the Team's leader, but was stopped by Batman's outstretched arm./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""We have to help him!" demanded the archer./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Superboy stepped up next to her. "This is Nightwing's fight."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I must agree with Superboy and Batman in this instance. I fear if we attempted to help him, we would only get in Nightwing's way." His attention was drawn back to the sickening pop as Dick relocated his wrist./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""What, no quip?" demanded Red Hood. "I was expecting one."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Expect this!" growled Nightwing, springing forwards into a flip followed by a swift kick that would have knocked out any opponent not used to training with him. However, Jason dodged the kick slugged Dick as hard as he could in the face. His nose made a wet, cracking sound as blood began to leak out of the broken appendage. Nightwing was able to adapt however, jabbing Jason hard in his larynx, possibly fracturing it. Jason fell to one knee, gasping. -Not now, he didn't have time for a stupid PTSD attack! emThere wasn't enough air. The timer hit zero. The roaring wind. The screaming, yelling, crying, trying to get out-"/em the attempted invasion of his mind was enough to snap him out of his panic and allowed him to slam his mental shields down hard on the martians. Channeling the inner demonic energy from the Lazarus Pit in a technique he learned from Raven, Jason sent an attack of his own back at the duo. While M'Gann was not outwardly affected, J'onn flinched, and a moment later, he sensed both withdrawing from his mind./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Turning to the pair, Jason rasped out, "I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to crush my mind. I saw what happened to the kroloteans you interrogated." M'Gann looked a even paler shade of green then normal. Movement in his peripheral vision drew his attention from the Martian to the vigilante attempting to knock him out. Jason blocked the punch to his shoulder, only to notice the feint too late. Nightwing's jab caught him square in the thigh where his stitches previously were. Normally Jason would have been able to fight through the pain of having his stitches torn. However, his "brother" had dug a birdarang hilt deep into his thigh in a dirty move. Also unfortunately, it quickly become apparent that he would not be able to fight at all. He rolled away from Dick and got into a fighting stance-only to fall to one knee. "You have changed." stated Jason./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You're damn right." growled Dick stepping forward so that he was less than ten feet from Jason. Who pulled out a 40mm and shot Dick in his right leg./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You're still an idiot, though."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""At least I didn't ignore that Martians can draw strength in a mental link for their mental attacks." grunted Dick as he applied pressure to his steadily bleeding leg. "M'Gann now!" The eyes of said Martian glowed an acidic green as she and the combined mental strength of the Team breached Jason's shields. Even at one hundred percent, he had no chance of stopping them from seeing his memories, and besides, his vision was getting fuzzy from blood loss. For the first time since he had woken up from that god forsaken pit, Jason willingly let the green envelop him and directed it towards the heroes attempting to see his mind. As he was swallowed by the green, he was vaguely aware of someone screaming. He wondered if it was him./p 


	15. Worse than Normal

p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Nightwing batted away the fourth shapeless green attacker in just as many minutes. His attacker was insubstantial, leading all his attacks to be ineffective on the creature. However, it was dealing very real attacks at him. "Robin, see if you can wake M'Gann! She might be able to stop these things!" Tim tersely nodded his head, before vaulting over the blob that resembled a wolf that was charging him. Dick threw three ice birdarangs, as they seemed to be the only weapons he had that were making a dent in the creature before dodging to the side as it barreled past him. He sighed in relief as the mental link was restored by the martian who had passed out upon the breach of their enemy's mind./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"M'Gann groggily sat up with some help from Tim./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"Ugh..."/em/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"M'Gann! Green glowing creatures that are attacking! We need some breathing room to regroup! /em/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"Right, right."/em mumbled M'Gann through the link. Her eyes glowed green again as she made a shoving motion with her hand, sending the creatures back thirty yards where they remained, circling the Team./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"Role call. Who's here."/em he thought./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"Robin."/em/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"Batgirl." /em/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"Artemis."/em/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"Aqualad."/em/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"Superboy."/em/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"Red Arrow."/em/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"Beast boy."/em/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"Impulse."/em/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"Blue beetle."/em/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"Wondergirl."/em/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"Lagoon Boy."/em/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"Miss Martian. Where are we?"/em M'Gann wondered aloud to the group that had unconsciously formed a back-to-back circle. She received several confused glances before she elaborated. em"Every mind has a mind scape where they feel most secure. It could be a place where they group up, where a major change happened, or a place with strong emotions associated with it."/em/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"It..." /emBatgirl started tentatively, em"looks like Gotham, but broken down, Even worse than it is now."/em The Team glanced around looking at the state of disarray the city was in. Buildings were collapsed and dust filled the thick, heavy air. Cars were overturned, on fire, or left in the middle of the street to rot. Dogs howling morosely were audible and gunfire echoed through the graveyard of rebar, concrete, and brick that surrounded the Team. em"I don't understand how this is possible. It's ground zero down here, it's never this bad in Gotham."/em/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"This must be how Red Hood perceives Gotham."/em replied M'Gann. em"If we want to find him, we need to move closer to the center of the city and the center of his mind." /em/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"Can you try to send those...things farther away?"/em thought Robin./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"I'm sorry. Unlike all the enemies or protectors in his mind, these are very real."/em M'Gann answered, as the creatures slowly faded into shadow./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"Let's go then." /emdecided Nightwing. As the Team slowly began their trek through the city, Impulse began to notice that some buildings lay practically untouched, while others were a wreck. Checking to make sure that nobody was looking at him, Bart sped over to one such building when the Team passed it. When he put his hand on the handle, a blinding light filled the Teams vision before clearing./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Bart! What did you do?!" demanded Artemis./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""The building was totally intact! Iwantedtoseewhatwasup!" he nervously finished his sentence in true speedster fashion out of nervousness./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Why would you do that in a dang-"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Freeze!" Artemis was interrupted by a man that pushed past her holding what looked like the entire contents of a jewelry store's window display. "Stop in the name of the law!" A female officer yelled, slowly gaining ground on the man, who was weighted down with jewelry. The man ran down an alleyway and was quickly followed by the officer./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Was that...?" wondered Batgirl aloud./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""It was." confirmed Nightwing. "C'mon, we need to follow them." The Team sprinted after the petty crook and his pursuer; both of which had reached a dead end./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Drop the jewelry and put your hands over your head." the woman snapped between pants. Her voice was steady, proving that she was not a rookie in the crime capital of the U.S. The man dropped the jewelry and turned around, pulling his own gun, right as the officers large partner came around the corner, wheezing./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Drop the weapon!" he demanded./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""...". The man lowered his weapon, but did not drop it, instead sizing up the officers, deciding if he could make the shot. Suddenly, he raised the gun, aimed at the female officer, but before he could fire, he was shot in the leg by the man. The gun clattered uselessly the ground as he clasped his thigh, which was bleeding profusely. "God fucking damnit you son of a bitch!" he yelled, screaming profanity at the officer as his partner kicked the gun away./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Damnit Bullock! You emhad/em to shoot the guy! Gordon's trying to get the rookie officers to not shoot cons!"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Oh, so you would have preferred if I let him shoot you, emMontoya/em?"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""No! But we could have tried to resolve this empeacefully/em!"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""He wasn't going to go peacefully! None of these scumbags will!"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""It's the principle you-" Nightwing's attention was drawn from the two detectives to the little boy looking warily down on the scene from the fire escape. His face held an expression of sadness, as if he knew that he should have been horrified at what had happened right below him, but he was not. The boy winced as someone yelled at him from inside the apartment, and jumped from the fire escape to the next apartment over, just as the scene dissolved./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""What was that?" demanded Superboy./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""It must have been something important from his childhood." M'Gann supplied./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""How? The guy was clearly too old to be the Red Hood."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You didn't see the kid on the fire escape?" Nightwing cut in./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Who?"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""He was five or six, could've been our guy easily." A rumbling sound began starting from inside the apartment building and spread towards the Team. "We need to move, now."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Agreed."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"The Team took off running towards the center of the city just in time. As soon as they were clear of the debris field, the apartment collapsed. "Which way?" Garfield wondered as the Team reached a fork in the street. "Towards Wayne Enterprises. It's at the center of the city." Nightwiing replied, taking the right side. The rest of the Team ran after him, occasionally jumping over or around debris before stopping at another intact apartment building. Exchanging a glance with Batgirl, Nightwing took a step forwards. "What are you doing?" demanded Artemis./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""It's another intact building, and a chance to find out more about the Red Hood." Dick lamely replied./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You already know who he is, why are you looking?" she asked, eyes softening./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"em"I need to see where I went wrong."/em he thought just to the senior members of the Team. Nightwing put his hand on the doorknob, only for nothing to happen. "Maybe we need to open it?" Robin asked. That seemed to do the trick. As Nightwing opened the door the scene changed to another memory./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"A small boy was scribbling on a piece of construction paper that looked like it had seen better days with a crayon. Sighing, he stopped coloring and carefully lowered himself off a chair and began to walk to another room from the kitchen. As he passed the amassed heroes silently watching, many of the girls squeed. em"What? He's a cute kid."/em Wondergirl sullenly thought When many of the males raised eyebrows. The boy walked down a hall until he reached a door. "Mom," he yelled through the door, "I'm hungry!"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Make dinner yourself you useless waste of space!" was the reply he received. He sighed before opening the door to his mother and her drugs./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Mom, those aren't good for you. In school they said that you can die from smoking that."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I don't care about what they tell you in school, you useless brat. Sucking up all our money to go to school." she snapped at him. "All the teachers are crooked or sluts anyways..." she muttered./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I'm worried about you Mom, ever since Dad didn't come back-"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Don't talk about that man around me! He's dead!" she screamed. The boy stared at her in shock./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Oh."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Oh, oh, that's all you have to say, you ungrateful little pig, get out! Now!" the boy hurriedly closed the door. The memory faded and more rumbling was audible./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Let's go!" The Team ran to the end of the block as the building caught on fire and slowly began to burn to the ground. The building crackled and began to implode at a rate far faster than any normal fire as the flames racing across the timbers began to take on a familiar ethereal green glow. Shadows were thrown across the street and the heroes' faces./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""That was close." Beast Boy spoke out loud./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You're not out of the woods yet." whispered a hooded figure behind him./p 


	16. Rusted Ruins and Familiar Faces

p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Beast boy shrieked, startled, and zipped away in the form of a hummingbird. He shifted into the form of a ram and turned, ready to attack the figure, but was stopped dead as he recognized her. Garfield staggered and turned back into his human Martian hybrid form. "Raven?" he gasped in shock./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"The wraith like figure did not answer him. Instead it raised it's hands and attacked./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Nightwing had an extreme sense of deja vu; the feeling of Raven's demonic energy wrapping around him felt too much like the invisible hands Slade had used to restrain the Titans in the underground temple. Except this time it wasn't a psychotic villain restraining him with hellfire, but his former teammate restraining him with shadows that chilled him to the bone. Raven's face was shadowed, but he could faintly see four red eyes glowing from underneath the shadowy confines of her hood. A smirk adorned the visible part of he face and she smiled with bloodlust as she increased the pressure she was squeezing each member of the team with. He swore heard Bart's back crack, and he knew that if they didn't escape her hold soon, most of the human members of the team wouldn't make it. It looked like everyone but M'Gann and Artemis were trying with all their might to struggle. Artemis had gone limp, but glared at the shadows with a fearsome expression, while M'Gann was cursing audibly in Martian as she tried in vain to ease Raven's grip. Dick's breath hitched as Raven continued her attack and his rib cage started to give under the pressure./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""No! Azarath metrion zinthos!" shouted a familiar voice and the demon dropped its prey, hissing. "You are not needed here. Leave this place!" she hissed. The hooded figure released the captured heroes and disappeared into the shadows, nearly burning a hole through the real Raven's head. As soon as his feet touched the ground, Lagoon Boy was charging the enchantress. However, when he aimed to punch her, his fist flew through her head. La'gaan just growled and swung again, despite the attack being ineffective before. Predictably, his swing went through her head again./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""What ARE you?" he demanded./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Annoyed." replied the figure smoothly stepping past him and walking up to Nightwing./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""What are you doing in his head?" she demanded accusingly./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""How long have you known who 'Hood was under the mask?" Nightwing glared back./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""That isn't relevant to the conversation."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""No, you just don't want to admit that you could have told me the identity of the criminal massacring Gotham's underworld and could have saved the lives of several hundred people."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I wasn't aware of his nightly activities."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You would have known who he was as soon as he opened up his head to you. It wouldn't be hard for you to connect the dots. I know you, Raven. And I want to know why he came to you." Nightwing snarled./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Anger will not help you." she replied in a dry deadpan./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Well then, would you please be ever so kind, and tell me why you would help a clearly unstable, well-trained killer, regain his sense of equilibrium and allow him to be able to think clearly."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You've answered your own question, Nightwing." she ground out. "You say you know me? Well, I know you. When he came to me, he was being tormented by demons every time he closed his eyes. The Lazarus pit is not kind to the common man. I could let him continue on his path and let him most likely wind up like Ras al Ghul, or I could clear his head from the flaming hell it was and attempt to right him once again. I do not regret what I did." Barbara gasped, in shock. "You of all people should know what it's like being surrounded by demons, and one League of Shadows is more than enough."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I'm sorry Rae." he sighed. "I just don't understand why you didn't tell me about the man under the hood."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I didn't tell you for the same reason none of the Titans asked you about the League and Batman. You both needed some distance from your pasts. I didn't realize he would dive right back into it." she sighed. "The guardian of his mind should leave you alone now."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"She turned to Wondergirl, a small smile on her ashen face. "I was able to force the demons back while your friend could not because they recognize my mastery over them." Cassie stepped back in shock./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Were you reading my mind?! That is a total violation of my privacy!" she exclaimed angrily./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Is it mind reading when you broadcast your thoughts so loudly anyone with slight telepathic ability can hear them?" Raven dead panned./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Cassie huffed angrily and then stomped off as M'Gann mumbled, "You do think very loudly Wondergirl."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Raven turned to speak to her but was cut off as someone hugged her from behind, or attempted to anyways. Beast boy, forgetting her current intangibility, despite her astral projection, had tried to wrap his arms around her, only to fall through her. Her eyes glowed black as she turned, ready to engage the threat, only to relax as she saw it was just Beast Boy./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I missed you Raven! Why don't you visit more?" the changing pleaded from underneath her shadow. The edges of her lips turned up in what was a wide grin for the half-demoness./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Some of us have cities that we're tasked with protecting." she rasped. "I've been here for almost five minutes. I need to return to my body on the physical plane." She opened a portal with her hand. "You two should visit sometime Kori misses you." she stepped through the portal before the two could respond./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Who was that?" questioned Miss Martian./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""An old friend." Nightwing chose not to acknowledge the Martian's presence next to him and continued to stare at the familiar shadows which had just consumed one of his closest friends. Shaking his head to clear his mind, he turned to the Team. "We need to keep going towards the center of the city, so we can get out of his mind."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I thought you wanted to find out more about the perp?" questioned Cassie./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""That was personal?" Nightwing gave a flimsy excuse. Robin sighed./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Let's get going."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"As the Team continued through the ramshackle city of ashes, flashes of green were barely there-and gone in the back of their vision. The demonic creatures from earlier stalked them from a distance, hiding behind collapsed walls covered in gang graffiti. Familiar calling cards such as smiles, jack-o-lanterns, or a set of scales adorned the filthy bricks from another era. The wind cruelly howled through gaps in the abandoned masonry. Jutting out from the ground like a spire in the desert was a back alley completely intact compared to the wasteland surrounding it. Blue Beetle slowly approached the cramped space between buildings as if afraid that it would attack him. Jaime glanced back at the rest of the Team as if looking for reassurance before pushing forward into the alley. Immediately the team was catapulted into another memory./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"It was raining, a downpour so fierce, that it seemed as if the heavens were sobbing onto the hellish city below it. Crouched next to a dumpster in the feeble hope that it would shelter him from the rain was a small boy. His deceptively small figure hid the fact that he was ten, malnutrition making it easy for him to pass as almost half his age. The boy was shivering in a wet heap, his teeth chattering, clothes soaked to the bone, when a screeching cat ran into the alley and hid underneath the dumpster./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Meow."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Hello." he somehow managed to smile as he sniffled from what was clearly a cold. The cat "meowed" again; the boy tentatively stuck out a hand, and the cat just as tentatively inched towards him. The feline's pelt was blacker than the city's smoggy skyline and its eyes were a rich green. The cat appeared to stare into the boy's soul before it seemingly gave up its reservations and hopped into the boy's lap, it's collar tinkling. "What's your name?" he asked, petting its head, and checking the tag. "Isis? Hmmm...seems to fit you." he hugged the cat, just as two men came storming into the alleyway./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Now where's the fucking broad's flea bag? The boss wants us to off the damn thing before the cat bitch gets her hands back on it." snarled the smaller of the two men./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Well if you hadn't lost the damn thing, we wouldn't be having this fucking problem now, would we?" the larger growled back. The small boy clutched the cat tighter and shrunk more into the shadow of the dumpster. Unfortunately, he squeezed the cat so hard, it made an exclamation of pain that was somehow heard by the men over the pounding of the rain. "There it is!" The two men advanced./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Hey kid, we lost our pet kitty and you seem to have found her", one of the men leered./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""We've been looking for her all night, the silly kitty."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"The boy looked at the two men with one eyebrow raised as if asking, "Really?"./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""She's not your cat." the boy stoutly responded. The mens' fake smiles fell./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Listen kid, you don't know how important that cat is. Hand it over." glared the larger man./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""No." responded the boy, standing up, and setting the cat down behind him./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Just give us the cat and we won't hurt you kid." snapped the other./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""No." responded the boy, eyes narrowed at the men./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You asked for it." The smaller man looming over the boy and smashed his face with a right hook that snapped his nose with a sickening crunch. The boy fell to the ground crying out in pain. The larger of the two men kicked him in the chest, sending him sprawling. The boy cried out again, and struggled to get to his feet, as one of the men pulled out a gun, only to yell in pain has a whip crack around his wrist, causing him to reflexively clutch his wrist in pain. A lithe female figure jumped from a window ledge on one of the adjoining buildings and cushioned her fall by landing on the man's head, which smashed against the unforgiving sidewalk, knocking him out. The other thug reached for a gun growling, "You're going to pay for hurting my buddy, you cat bitch." Before he could turn the gun on her, the woman reached froward and slashed his face with her hand, leaving five gruesome lacerations where her fingers were. The man yowled in pain, desperately trying to see through the blood dripping into his eyes, so he could not have stopped the kick that caught him in his weak spot. The man helped and clutched the affronted body part between his legs in pain./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Unless you want another set of scars in a much more painful spot, I suggest you leave now." The woman was ice cold rage personified. The man numbly nodded, and sprinted from the alley holding his face. The woman turned to the boy who was holding his nose while attempting to fend off an overly affectionate cat attempting to lick the blood off his face. "Someone likes you." she smiled./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""If this is what having a girlfriend is like, I never want to see another girl again." he muttered, as the cat attempted to jump on him. The woman laughed and pulled the goggles covering her eyes onto the top of her head./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I'll help you out. Isis!" she called and the cat pranced over to her, and sprang into her arms, purring. The boy stared./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Your Catwoman." he gasped. The Team watched in shock as the master thief smiled again./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""What gave it away, the cat or the ears?" the woman grinned before becoming more serious. "Look kitten-"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Jay."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Jay, why aren't you at a shelter?" The boy mumbled something that the Team could not catch. "The shelters aren't all lame, I lived at a few good ones when I was your age." The cat tried to burrow deeper into the leather she wore. "Yes, I know little one." she acknowledged it. "I have to go kitten, but if you need to talk to me look for one Selina Kyle. She'll no where to point you." The woman leaped into the night as the walls dissolved./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"The Team barely recovered in time to move out of the way before the alley crumbled in front of them. Some of the younger members looked like they wanted to discuss what they had just seen, but Nightwing pushed them on. They ran through the crumbling structure until they passed a gleaming auto shop. The building looked as if it was brand new, and gave off a familial feeling. This time Artemis stepped forward and opened the door, the bell tinkling as the new customers entered. Inside the boy had aged a year and was underneath the belly of a beat up pick-up truck, cursing up a storm as he struggled to dislodge a bolt from an equally rusty exhaust pipe. A man laughed from farther in the shop./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""How's it going J?"/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""It sucks. The damn car's a rust bucket and is worth more as scrap metal." he growled, before giving a triumphant shout as he managed to dislodge the stubborn piece of metal. At that moment, the glass door the Team had just gone through was shattered and masked men stormed the shop./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""False facers!" gasped Batgirl./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Who?" demanded Beastboy./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Members of the False Face Society, the gang lead by Roman Sionis, better known as the crime lord Black Mask. They own a lot of businesses in Gotham, and extort a lot more for protection money." As she explained, the men had surrounded the man in the back of the shop and had leveled their guns at him. He was a balding Caucasian man in his late fifties, with a kind face, something rare in Gotham./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Your late on your payments, Tilvern."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Look, business has been slow the last two months, I swear, I'll make it up next week after the Bertinelli Family and Odessa Mob drag race for part of the west end. They always come to me for repairs."/p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""We want the money now, Tilvern." the ringleader growled. "If you're not willing to give it, we'll take it." This seemed to be some unsaid signal, as the men shot at the same time. The old man slowly sagged to the floor, dead, as blood poorer out of the numerous bullet holes in his body. The gang then looted the cash register and the store for anything valuable before exiting through the door they broke. Miraculously, the eleven year old remained undiscovered throughout the entirety of their pillaging. He waited five minutes after they left, before sprinting through the shop and grabbing valuable materials. A tire jack, crowbar, and hand held drill all went into an industrial sized cart, which he pushed out the back door, before walking over to the man on the floor./p  
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I think you'd want me to have this stuff, to survive." he stared at the body for a moment before walking out the door. He was followed by the group as the building shook. However, instead of collapsing, it just rusted into ruins./p 


	17. Crescendo

The group creeped down the street, nerves on edge. Despite, their readiness to sprint out of the way of any hazards, they were ill equipped to avoid the next memory, given they walked straight into it.

Gotham was warmer than most Metropolitan cities in summer, but tonight it was unbearably hot. The air was thick with dark, choking smog and a lazy heat that made one just want to lie down and hope that the heatwave would abate. The alley was unbearably filthy, with mud, oil, and human excrement intermingling and collecting in potholes and dips. The thick layer of filth was, however, unable to conceal the tape outlines of two people, who had presumably died on the spot. Murdered for refusing to pay protection money, the victim of a serial killer, a random mugging, it didn't matter. Gotham poisoned everything and everyone to shadows of themselves, and birthed monsters on a regular basis. What made this night different from all the rest was the presence of a sleek war machine. Also, that said war machine was actually the Batmobile, and "J" was jacking the tires off. He was struggling to pry one of the hubcaps of the rim off with an ill fitting wrench, and from the looks of it, he had been largely successful. Three rims lay on a clean(er) patch of brickwork. Jason gave a truly inspiring string of cuss words, and ripped the hub cap off. Someone cleared their throat behind him.

The twelve year old whipped around in shock. Batman loomed over him, seeming to lengthen and grow with the shadows. The already thick and foggy air seemed the bare down and crush the boy. It truly was a fearsome sight. The man took a step forwards and J reacted. The wrench grazed the man's head before rebounding off the wall with a resounding clang.

The stagnant air began to stir, rapidly morphing into a tornado-like gust. Gravel, trash, and other rubble was spit out of the alley and loose stones were thrown indiscriminately at the Team and walls. The wind was such a force of nature, it threw them all to the ground. The two figures, however, remained standing. At least until they burst into ashes, and in turn, were funneled into the sky, presumably to coat the ground elsewhere in the horror show that was this version of Gotham. Bricks were ripped from walls and floors one by one and smashed into dust. As soon as the wind started, it abruptly ceased, leaving a patch of empty, barren ground.

They wandered down the decrepit city, attempting to ignore the sporadic gunfire and the spontaneous combustion of nearby buildings. The sidewalk had seen better days. It was covered in ashes and full of cracks. The cement was gashed, gulches of rotting sewage forming rivers twenty feet below. At one point a subway had careened into the sewer system. A family of red-breasted birds startled and took flight, twittering loudly, their voices soft notes in the pandemonium that had overtaken the city. Bart was nearly clotheslined by a fearful, desperate, man. His skin was a dusty brown, his hair a darker, oily hue, and he wore the clothes bought of affluence, wealth, and more importantly power. Except, he wasn't in power now.

A deep, bone shaking, earth tearing rumbling got closer, eating up the ground and creating more gashes in the charred landscape. The street caved behind him, and dusty, halfway there thoughts formed a mob behind him. Screaming, yelling, demanding justice-no vengeance. The man desperately began climbing a rubbish pile, skittering and sliding on the debris. Despite the ashy ground and choking air, his suit remained unblemished, a mark of his wealth, his power. Although the man was severely hampered by the mountain in front of him, the mob screaming for his head was not. The first shadow reached his foot, hand solidifying as it made contact with his body. The man gave a god awful squeal of terror and began thrashing desperately, screeching out apologies. "Felipe Garzonas," the voice was not "J's", instead it was distinctly feminine, "for your crimes, your time has come". Nightwing' eyes widened in shock.

"No."

"No, please!" the man wailed. "¡Ayúdame!" His body thudded, a dull crack echoing throughout the city, rebounding off buildings. The Team looked away in some combination of horror and respect for the dead. However, upon the snapping back together of bones, sealing of flesh, and stemming of blood flow their gazes returned to the previously dead body. The man jumped to his feet and gave a shriek that surely could wake the dead before rapidly stumbling off. The mob followed him. Superboy made to follow, but was grabbed by Nightwing.

"He's already dead. This is just a figment of a memory." Connor looked ready to shake the elder hero off. "There's nothing you can do. This man has been dead for six years."

"How do you know?" demanded Wondergirl. Nightwing did not turn to face her and his emotionless voice was scarcely more than a whisper.

"Because I watched him fall the first time."

"We need to get to the center of his mind. That's the only way we can end this." M'Gann not so gently reminded the group of their original purpose.

"Agreed." muttered Nightwing. "Let's get going, take the path of least resistance and-" the ground in front of them rumbled, a sinkhole swallowing all of the debris in the way, clearing the path to a warehouse. Ignoring the uneasy feeling that accompanied the easy route to their goal, the Team began their slow voyage towards the center of the mystery man's mind. And then the world was alive with fire.

A ear shattering, earth wrenching boom ripped across the night, throwing the group to the ground and rolling it in waves underneath them. Flames bit at the murky sky, cracking across the horizon and setting fire to the ground. Psychotic laughter bounced around them, ricocheting off walls and the skeleton of the warehouse. As the flames grew, the laughter strengthened, reaching an unbearable cacophony of hysterical madness, showcasing the owner's glee at the destruction. Shadows began to lengthen around them, and took on an unholy green tinge as the flames morphed into an all consuming blaze that ate up the ground at a extremely rapid rate. The insubstantial emerald monsters from before solidified, lunging faster than the eye could track..."GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"

 **Translations:**

 **¡Ayúdame! -Help me!**


End file.
